


Carry Your Throne

by sanguinarily



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: A Lot of Things as Foreplay That Oughtn't be Foreplay, A Shakespeare Pun, Electricity as Foreplay, First Time, M/M, Mischief, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Sex, The Great 'Our Planet Exploded' Get Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 04:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13849899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinarily/pseuds/sanguinarily
Summary: “Apparently,” Loki says. “I'm a matter best left to the royal prerogative. 'The king shall deal with Prince Loki as he sees fit.'""Shall I now?"





	Carry Your Throne

**Author's Note:**

> for Zoe @wolfhalls and Eliza @witchplse my cheerleaders who were with me in the restaurant at the British Museum when i decided, stupidly, to write a Thorki
> 
> and for Lottie @lotstradamus

The first time Loki had needed to do this had been after Thor had dragged him to Muspelheim for an ‘adventure’ that had almost killed them both. He’d been told after he woke up that he had thrown all his magic up to protect Thor, that almost his entire body had been burnt in the process, and that he’d barely managed to get to the Bïfrost site before collapsing. Thor had, apparently, been beside himself. Loki remembers very little of it.

The second time had been after an assassination attempt on Frigga and Odin by some disgruntled Vanir. Loki had used so much seiðr and magic to create walls and duplicates and knives that in the aftermath Frigga had taught him the spell that he’d just automatically done the first time and told him why he needed it.

Thor had of course forgotten both of those times when Loki had brought up needing _this_ exhaustion coma, and Loki had been favoured with a flat look of disbelief. Which admittedly would have been fair, Loki would think it were a convenient excuse too, if he weren’t being totally genuine about needing it. Between the sheer amount of magic he’s done in the week and a handful of days after Thor’s return to Asgard, the effort of two years maintaining both a constant illusion on himself and the dampening curse on Odin (he has no idea when Odin broke free and he doesn't want to think about it), almost dying at the hand of that monstrosity on Svartalfheim, and before that the catastrophe on Midgard at the whim of that mad titan Loki had certainly felt that strain keenly when the dust had settled. Mother always taught him to pay attention to what his body told him, and his body had been screaming at him to sleep.

“If you’re leaving,” Thor had told him, “you don’t have to be duplicitous about it.”

“Look, you can believe me or you can not,” Loki had said. “I care very little either way, but I am going now. To sleep. I can’t tell you when I will awaken because the spell doesn’t work like that. I will be asleep for as long as I need to be.”

“Like the Odinsleep.” Thor had said, nodding before narrowing his eye again and adding, “If I believed you about it, which I don’t.”

“Yes, very astute, brother. Exactly like the Odinsleep,” Loki had retorted, ignoring the rest. “Mostly because the Odinsleep was a self-important name the Allfather gave to something that anyone with a grasp of seiðr and a tendency to overuse said grasp will do.”

“Overuse?”

Loki had smiled and said, “Yes, Thor. Overuse. It’s sleep or unravel.” He had regretted admitting that much when Thor’s look of doubt had morphed into a look of understanding, and he’d fled before Thor had a chance to be all forthright and earnest at him. 

***

Loki deals with the encroachment of waking like anyone else would: he draws the covers up over his head and tries to go back to sleep and when that doesn’t work he avoids getting up by bringing the covers back down just enough to snake his hands out and start disabling the hasty spells he’d woven before he’d collapsed into sleep like a tower of baseline annoyance, bruised everything, and a monumental amount of repressed devastation at the death by fire of his sort of/mostly/it’s _complicated_ homeworld, that had been subjected to an almighty kick.

The give of the seiðr when he reaches for it is unimaginably good and neither his hands nor the net of magic, the weft and warp of the universe, resist him. As the traps are basic, simple things like searing pain to anyone who touches him while he’s out and alarms to draw him back to the land of the living if they do it more than thrice, they take him no time at all to disable. He drops his hands and stares at the ceiling.

For all those protective charms, he thinks, he hadn’t thought to cast anything to tell him how long he’s been out this time. He’d be surprised though, given the magic he’s used, if it hadn’t been at least a week. He wonders for a moment if Thor and the others have even bothered to construct time on this ship before deciding that they must have. The people will want have wanted every semblance of normality that they could claw together after seeing Asgard burn; Thor would be foolish not to have obliged them, and Thor, as Loki is learning, is very much not a fool anymore.

He can’t deny that he’s curious about it, the interim life that’s been continuing beyond his door while he’s been asleep. It’s a failing he’s had since childhood, the curse of an older more adventurous brother: Loki hates feeling like he’s missed out. So he’s thrown on a mismatch of clothes from the pile that he’d grabbed from his rooms on Asgard before going to the Vault for Surtur’s outrageously heavy crown, splashed water from the basin on the table over his face — he’d had to charm it from stale to crystal clear which just confirms the hesitant timescale he’s working with — and flung open the door before he realises that he has two problems. He can’t actually remember where Thor’s rooms are and that he has no idea what artificially constructed time it is.

The first of these problems is solved by the wall opposite him, upon which there are now brightly painted lines that branch off as far as Loki can see, forming a running map with marks in runic and other diverse languages. To his left a green line promises to take him to the banqueting hall, a brown line underneath points him in the same direction to the training ground. To his right, red and blue run parallel to lead him to the great hall and the healers. Other lines, all the colours of the Bifröst intersect and weave around the walls but Loki finds his eyes drawn to an unmarked line of gold that remains straight out to his right. 

It's not subtle, though Loki thinks it might be an attempt at it as he tracks it back to the centre of the knot where all the colours start. With a fingertip he draws a cross of magic there, the start of a ball of string to light his way back when he needs it, and sets off, leaving his own line of glittering green as he goes.

***

He works out the second problem on his way, deciding that since the ship is completely deserted and silent save for the humming of machinery and the occasional muted hiss of the boosters keeping them level that it must be night. Either that or something catastrophic has happened. He doesn’t think about that possibility and after what feels like a mile of deserted corridor after deserted corridor, Loki reaches the doors at the end of the golden line. 

The doors are only marginally more ornate than his, he notes, for a given value of ornate on a ship the decor of which is geometric patterning and variations on the theme of dull blue and he pauses with his palm over the handle: he's had his fair share of things thrown at him over the years for waking Thor up before he was good and ready. 

For a moment he worries about how Thor will react, but then he thinks of how when he’d shown up after waking Surtur he'd expected Thor to brush off the hug comment in favour of a clap on the shoulder or something equally gruff and distancing. Instead Thor had crossed the space between them in two strides and pulled Loki to him, the stopper falling to the floor with a clatter. Thor had had one hand buried in Loki’s hair and the other at his waist and when Loki had tried to step away, after an acceptable hug time had passed, Thor hadn’t let him. Loki remembers the feeling of Thor’s hand through the leather of his cape and jacket, anchoring him.

The previous Norns-know-how-many times Thor has touched Loki he has ended up hurting as a result of it, be it physically or mentally. The most recent time they'd embraced Loki had been dying in Thor's arms, the time before that he'd been leading an invasion on Midgard and had stabbed Thor in the side for sentiment -- his track record is not good. But Thor had held Loki close to him anyway and so Loki tests the door.

Almost unbelievably, it isn’t locked, and Loki allows himself a moment to silently scream about how stupid is is that Thor's door, the door to the chambers of the _King of Asgard_ is unlocked and unguarded and anyone with a grudge or even the faintest anti-monarchist feeling could just waltz right in. He’s deeply aware of the irony of this feeling, he also deeply wishes he wasn’t feeling it at all — if Thor wants to get himself killed that _should_ be his prerogative and before now Loki would have leant a hand — but Loki finds himself casting a ward behind him regardless as he walks into the room.

The desk that had been empty when he’d last been here is now piled high with charts and papers, he recognises Thor's impatient scrawl on them, and there’s less alcohol in the decanters but he can't blame Thor for that. Loki’s own experience of kingship had been mostly day-drinking. He lifts the bottle stopper, the one that Thor had thrown, and carries it with him to the next room, the door to which is also not locked. 

Loki takes a deep, calming breath and casts another ward. Either, he thinks, Thor is relying entirely on Heimdall for personal safety or he genuinely trusts that none of the people on this ship mean him harm, and since the ship is also home to a number of the revolutionaries out of Sakaar and Heimdall’s success rate isn’t perfect both of those options are foolish. If he finds Thor with his throat slit then so help him Loki will learn necromancy just to kill him again.  

Thor’s chest is at least moving and Loki can hear his breathing, when he walks into the bedchamber but that’s as far as the good news goes. Thor is sleeping in a wreck of scorched sheets and that the darkness of the room is being sporadically cut through by arcs of blue lightning. Thor is tossing and turning, the sheets that are tangled around his arms miraculously not setting alight as the lightning rolls down to hit them. Loki’s by the bed before he knows he's moved.

He leans over Thor and reaches down, puts one hand on the hollow where shoulder meets neck and feels the tension there, Thor’s muscles coiled tight to the point of what must be pain. The lightning rolls dangerously close to Loki's hand before stopping abruptly and Loki holds the back of his other hand over Thor's forehead to find it burning. The cooling charm he casts is instinctive, second-nature, a wash of green that sinks into Thor's skin and soothes him, just as Loki'd done when they were children. The first spells he'd ever learnt to cast had been those to heal.

When Thor still doesn't wake Loki risks it, cards a hand through Thor's shorn hair, and watches the rise and fall of Thor's breathing as it smooths out. The sheet has uncovered Thor's torso, and Loki sees the new scars that mingle with old across the planes of his stomach, along with the dents from where armour has pressed in at his sides for too long. External scars are easy to quantify, Loki thinks, they show that while your opponent got some hits in it’s you who walked away and Thor is thus a catalogue of triumphs. Loki's skin is less marked; his scars don't show, and if you _could_ see them they wouldn’t be as easy to look at.

Still sleeping, Thor shifts his head and Loki looks at his face, studies the worried lines around his eye and the hollow where the other should be. This is the first chance Loki's had to see it up close and not hidden by the patch. It looks red and tender and mangled and just like Father’s and Loki's own eyes twinge in sympathy.

It dawns on him slowly that this is likely the closest Thor has had anyone get since they left Sakaar, that this is more private than the normal sleep of normal people and aware, keenly, of how long he's been just looking at his brother in the dark, Loki says, quietly, "Thor," and puts a tiny amount of pressure down on Thor's shoulder.  

Thor's eye snaps open, pure and dangerously white, a spear of electricity jumping from his skin to Loki's fingers and Loki pulls them away with a yelp.

"What was that for?" he snaps, forgetting the quiet of the room and reverting to a distressingly teenage ire. He stands up fully and, inspecting the red mark on his hand where the current had run through flesh, scowls. "You brute, I sought only to wake you."

Thor pushes up onto his elbows, eye fading from white to its natural clear blue, and the tension bleeds away leaving him beaming up at Loki. "Brother!"

"Thor," Loki returns, deadpan, though the corner of his mouth twitches, and he’s so distracted by the movement of the muscles in Thor's chest as Thor pushes himself up fully that he only has a half second's realisation of what’s coming before Thor lunges for him, forcing Loki to bend at the waist or else fall to the bed. In the space of a breath Thor is enveloping him in another of his bone-crushing hugs.

“Brother!" Thor repeats happily against Loki’s hair and Loki struggles, his traditional facsimile of the fight against physical affection, and then gives in, holding tight despite the ungainly angle, the deep bow he's been pulled into.

He breathes into the warmth of his brother's skin and in the strength of him Loki cannot help but think of home. The safety of it. Asgard may not be a place now but it was once and this, Thor's arms around him, reminds him of it keenly. This is all he has of it. They are all they have left.

Thor has a hand buried in the hair at the nape of Loki's neck, his thumb brushing over the skin there and Thor’s fingers are calloused from the weapons he’s wielded since he was barely as tall as one, they catch and pull at Loki’s hair. He suppresses the shivers. Thor's other hand is at Loki's waist again, steadying and proprietary. 

Loki closes his eyes and allows himself to wind his arms around Thor's broad shoulders and pull him upwards, closing off the final inches of space between them.

"Brother," Thor says again, quieter now and gives him a final quick squeeze and a, "Welcome back,” before loosening his grip just enough for Loki to slip away. Thor grips his wrist as he tries to withdraw it, though, and Loki stands at the side of the bed, slightly hunched to keep the contact.

Thor glances up at him and clears his throat. "When two weeks had passed," he says, falters and then tries again, "I had not known when you'd be rejoining us." 

He sounds tired and Loki thinks about the lightning, looks at the charred mess of the sheets, and says, ”You thought I'd gone again," soft despite himself and then smiles, lets a familiar if long out of use mixture of exasperation and fondness colour his voice. "Oh, Thor, I did tell you I wouldn’t. And besides, where in the universe would I go?”

Thor doesn't even pause to consider before he answers decisively, "Back to Sakaar," like he’s given it some real thought and settled on that junkyard as the obvious place. "I told you —“

Loki scowls and pulls his hand free. "I know what you told me," he says, snippily and grits his teeth against other choice words about that interlude in the garage with the obedience disk. "But Sakaar is likely in ruins,” he points out and unable to help himself continues with, “And besides, if _you_ could anticipate my going there then to actually do so would be _far_ too predictable."

Thor laughs, shuffling towards the centre of the bed and snatching Loki's wrist back to pull him down to the space he’s freed up. Loki doesn’t bother to put up another fight, lets himself hit the mattress and slides to lean up against the headrest. He’s about to say something more when Thor moves, laying his head down on Loki’s thigh and shocking the words away. 

Automatically, Loki’s hands move to brush through Thor’s hair and Thor hums, quietly. They used to do this as children, up into their adolescence when Thor realised that letting his brother play with his hair wasn’t what Father or the Three deemed manly enough for the Crown Prince and legendary warrior he was becoming. Thor’s always walked the line of being far too dear to actually be a misogynist but, growing up in a culture like theirs, even those with hearts of gold occasionally slipped into common patterns. 

"I am glad that you are still here brother,” Thor says now, though he doesn’t quite manage to look at Loki, “I checked on your slumber some days-"

_Of course you did_ , Loki thinks, and says, “Then you should have known that I had not left." 

And then of course Thor disarms him completely with a hushed, "I was not sure if it was real." 

Loki's hand stills. He understands the thought completely, the impulse to keep checking and keep checking. He’s given Thor every reason to doubt him, and he can’t expect actions to speak louder than words when the whole weight of their shared history is behind the idea that Loki will never just be there. But he is here, he’s here now and he’s torn between wishing Thor could read his thoughts like he could when they were young and desperately hoping that he can’t. Loki does not know himself anymore, he hasn’t for years if he’s being honest, maybe even his whole life, but he’s starting to think.

Thor is staring up at him, and Loki studies his own hand in his brother's hair to avoid his gaze, says, wry, "I should imagine you miss you locks, brother, you were so proud of them.”

"I shall miss having two eyes more,” Thor quips, “besides I thought you’d be thrilled, Loki. You were always so jealous—“ 

Loki flicks him, hard, on the skull, ignoring Thor’s “ow, that was uncalled for” in favour of running his fingertip in circles around the place he’d hit.

He remembers how sometimes Thor had come to Loki to smooth out the tangles in his hair after bathing for him, lest mother of one of her ladies come and attack him with a comb. It’s a sentimental memory, not nearly as important as the stabbings or the hatred but, worryingly, it may be just as telling. Of course there are no tangles now so Loki traces, feather-light, the uneven lines, the places where the hair is shorn too close to his brother's skin. "Will you grow it or is this to stay?"

Thor laughs, “Why, are you worried?” and then pouts as Loki digs a threatening nail into his scalp. He reaches up to fiddle with a low strand of Loki's own hair and tells him, ever modest, that, “Everyone so far has said that they love it," before he pushes himself up and out of bed.

Thor has slept in only a pair of thin too-big breeches that Loki doesn’t recognise as Asgardian. They sit low on his hips, showing Loki a dangerously low scar that starts on Thor’s hip and dives across his lower back, beneath the useless waistband. Loki’s mouth goes dry as he stares, wanting to touch; to put his fingertips to every new knot of pale tissue and every line of dusky pink. The force of the want, if not the want itself, takes him by surprise and he drags his eyes away, asking, “What hour is it?” to try and distract himself.

It doesn’t work, Thor turns to him to answer, “It shouldn’t be long before the horn sounds for morning,” and Loki has to focus hard on meeting his brother’s eye rather than raking his eyes over his form.

No, it isn’t new this wanting. Loki has been desirous for as long as he has known what desire is. He had picked up Magpie-like tendencies as a boy, stealing shining things, gold and coin and jewel from wherever he could find it. Sometimes even more specific things, things of utmost value. _And what’s more valuable than Thor?_ Loki now thinks crazily. _Has anything ever been so?_ Back then he’d managed to curb his wanting Thor down to wanting things from Thor, appreciation, attention, need, and when things had continued as they had it’d been simpler to let it turn to resentment. He hadn’t been able to face the thought of what Mother would have done had he not stamped it down, what Odin would have made of Loki’s making monsters of both sons, ruining them with desire. Now of course he supposes that it’s true to form, he’s always been the corruption in the family.

Thor reaches for his basin of water on a nearby table and Loki snaps back to himself, and before he does something he’ll regret he moves a hand in the air. The basin hops forward, just out of Thor’s grasp, and his brother makes a frustrated sound. Loki can’t have Thor, he’s made most of his peace with that, but he can at least have fun with him.

"Loki," Thor says, without looking back at him, voice too amused to be a proper warning. He reaches again and curses when the basin hops away a second time, says louder, almost a growl, “ _Brother_.”

That one was a warning, Loki thinks and says, "What?” voice bright, teasing. “I’ve been asleep for weeks, Thor, and you were always so much fun in the mornings."

Thor was quite often hung over in the mornings and Loki would follow the thought to blame Volstagg if the thought of the Three didn’t jar him a little. He’d thought they’d never die, though he tried it himself a fair many times, and instinctively he says a silent prayer for them before focusing back to Thor.

With a gruff laugh, Thor turns, reaching down and across the bed to grab Loki by the arm, pulling him up. He manhandles Loki effortlessly, as if he weighed nothing at all, and presses him against the wall, pinning Loki's wrists to his chest with the clasp of one hand, all easy strength. The corner of his mouth — so close, _too close_ to Loki’s — is turned up into a smile. He starts to speak, an attempt at stern, “Loki—“ and Loki can't help but stare at his brother’s lips shaping his name.

Thor's eye mirrors the movement of  Loki's, his gaze focusing on Loki’s lips before it drops lower to the white hollow of his collarbone, exposed when his shirt had slipped as Thor had grabbed him. Loki’s skin feels warm from it, the growing heat of Thor's attention and for a moment he believes it but Loki has long learnt the value of caution with things like this.

Shifting his weight and his options Loki lays one hand flat on the muscles of Thor’s still sleepwarm chest, looking around the room for something he might use to free himself from the hold and the heat he feels coiling itself around his spine and clouding his judgment. Loki splays the fingers of his hand, meeting Thor's eye as it flicks back up to his, quizzical, and smirking as he then curls the fingers back in, making sure to scratch Thor's chest as he does so. Thor can do no more than shiver before a chair hits into the back of his legs and Loki slips free, scrambling over the bed to stand with it between them.

"You were always a terror when you had the mind to be, Loki," Thor says, a hand over the rapidly pinking lines that Loki's nails left, his voice still warm with amusement and that thread of possibility while Loki smiles at the memories. He takes a step forward and Loki raises a hand in readiness. 

Thor raises his own hands, signalling less surrender more ceasefire, says, “This is no time for games.” But he says it with the slightest hint of reluctance that makes Loki itch to do something else, to get Thor to touch him again, even if it means being thrown against hard metal in the process. He stamps the impulse down to embers.

"No," he agrees, to be contrary and to see Thor's look of surprise. "We can't have you looking dishevelled as you go amongst your people." 

He takes the cloak he’d thrown on back from the bed and wraps it around himself, watching as Thor goes through the same motions he had, wetting his face and hair and Thor has never been one for hiding himself in the same way Loki has, he lets his sleepwear fall to the ground without a thought. 

Loki finds himself looking away instinctively, a terrified muscle memory, before he realises that what's proper has been left dead in the dust and looks openly, though Thor doesn't see him do so, lets his eyes track over the strong, lean muscles that ripple under the golden skin. He sees that the scar he'd noticed earlier curves down across the cheek, it doesn't look like it was deep but nonetheless, it will have hurt. Loki's not sure whether it’s from Sakaar or the battle, maybe even before either of them, in Surtur's lair or on one of Thor's adventures with the Midgardians, but he appreciates it no matter its provenance. 

Thor turns back to him after lacing up his trousers and Loki schools his expression into nonchalance. He raises an eyebrow. "Do you intend not to wear a shirt?" he asks, and Thor pulls a face at him, picking up the one-piece of armour that he'd had on Sakaar and putting it on.

"Not everyone is as prudish when it comes to nudity as you are, brother," Thor retorts and points at the bedside table on Loki's side of the bed, "Could you?"

Loki picks up the eyepatch from the table, it's simple leather with accents of bronze, worlds away from the pure gold of Odin's. He throws it over and walks to the door, making a show out of his waiting by tapping his fingers on the frame and says, "Please tell me that there's food on this godforsaken ship.”

"Of course there is," Thor says, eyepatch on. ”Come on, doubtless you'll want to change before breakfast."

Loki, who, in a simple shirt and cloth trousers, is absolutely not appropriate for going amongst the common people, smiles at him and says, "You know me so well,” as Thor pushes him out of the door.

*** 

Thor doesn't need to be told to stay outside while Loki changes, he just waits, leaning against the door and occasionally kicking out what Loki assumes is a tune through the thick metal. 

When, dressed in black leathers he hasn’t worn in years, Loki pulls open the door to Thor he finds himself getting looked over. Loki's as covered as usual, but the lines of this piece accentuate his litheness, the dart in at his waist, and they contrast sharply with his skin. He looks _good_ , he thinks, and Thor can pull all the faces he likes but not everyone thrives on wearing the bare minimum. Armour takes different forms. 

Thor rolls his eye at him, sighing, "So many clothes, brother," and Loki pointedly straightens his collar. 

"Presentation is key,” he says, dryly, “This is why _I_ ended up by the Grandmaster's side on Sakaar whilst you were captured by scrappers.”

This is only half true, Loki had climbed that particular greasy pole partly through his usual guile and trickery but at the end of the day the Grandmaster had been a sucker for a pretty face, it had been the tease that had got him so close to the top. If the man survived the revolution, Loki likes to think he’s still waiting.

Thor pouts.  "It was an unlucky landing.” 

Loki pats him on the shoulder. "Of course it was," he assures. "Now concerning the food that you promised me..."

"Right, yes," Thor waves proudly at the lines on the wall like Loki could possibly have _missed_ them. "We've got a map--"

"I'd noticed,” Loki says, rather than something truly mean about only one of them having troubled sight, but Thor chuckles anyway, because Thor has always done that in the face of Loki's cattiness, and asks, "Why'd you have to choose a room so far away from everything?" 

Loki favours him with the look that deserves and is about to say something appropriately cutting when a hunting horn blares out over the comms system, alarmingly loud, and Loki only just manages to stifle the flinch as he remarks, "I'm assuming that means breakfast."

Grinning, Thor just breaks out into a jog leaving Loki wondering why he ever put up with this and hurrying to catch up. If he jogs up into Thor's blindside and aims a kick to his shins, well, who blames him?

They slow down to a walk as they approach a crowd of people waiting by the large, vaulted entrance to what Loki, taking a wild guess, would say is probably a large, vaulted room. There are guards in too-big armour there but their crossed spears seem pointless in the face of the benignly milling crowd.

"The bakers and cooks of Asgard do credit to us with what they have," Thor whispers at him, sticking to the back of the crowd and Loki thinks he’s probably trying to be sly about it but since he’s Thor he’s failing miserably, "but don't expect miracles."

"Thor,” Loki says, not even bothering to whisper back, “I have been asleep for two weeks, I don't care. I'm _ravenous._ "

At this a man nearest to them makes an odd, strangled sound, staring at Loki with a mixture of fear and hostility. Thor has either not noticed it or has but is ignoring it, Loki is willing to wager the latter. This is what being persona non grata feels like, he thinks: discomfiting. He smiles at the man, bears his teeth to watch him shrink back and look away.

But the crowd are not all worried by his sudden presence, one younger man even nods at him in greeting and a little girl is smiling as she points at him, chirping something happily to the adult at her side. Loki's so preoccupied with casting mini illusions of ships and sea monsters for her that he completely misses Heimdall approaching until he’s looming, larger than life at Loki's side. "Prince Loki," he greets, polite, "I saw you awaken."

"Gatekeeper,” Loki returns, trying, “Of course you did."

The golden annoyance merely bows his head. "I have no gate to keep, my prince," he says, holding out an arm and when Loki clasps it in the traditional greeting he adds, solemn, “It is good to have you back."

Loki blinks for a moment, before pulling up a smile of pure entitlement and purring, "Thank you."

Thor, who has been watching this unfold with unhidden amusement, beams at them. "Morning, Heimdall," he says. 

Heimdall answers with a nod and then in that way he has of predicting exactly what you're thinking even though all he should be able to do is see your every move, says, "Your schedule today is clear enough for you to give the prince the grand tour."

"Excellent!" Thor says, genuinely thrilled and then grabs Loki’s arm to direct him as the guards start letting people into the hall.

It must have been a cargo hold in a previous life, Loki notes, high-ceilinged and cavernous, but now it is filled with rows upon rows of makeshift tables that are merely crates of wood and metal thrown over with tarpaulin. At the far end, there is a shorter table, the crates that make it ever so slightly more even in height, somewhat raised: a High Table for the court of the King of Asgard. All the tables are equally covered in an array of foods, fruits and vegetables, meats and breads. Loki has never been one to think with his stomach but after his sleep this truly may be the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in his life.

"Those responsible are to be commended," he says, honest, and Thor beams even wider, pulling Loki up to the High Table with unrestrained glee and directing him to the space at Thor’s right hand.

Thor pats the bench. "Sit, brother."

"On your right?"

"Of course,” Thor persists, “Where else?" and when Loki continues to hesitate he finds himself being pulled bodily down.

He's never been at the right hand before, not directly, always either left or second right, after Mother, and Thor cannot miss the symbolism he's invoking though since he pays it no great mind neither will Loki. He takes a slice of cured meat and some bread and turns to Thor and asks, genuinely interested:

"This is quite the feast, brother, and only breakfast. Will we not run out?"

"We have a lot of food,” Thor tells him, but Loki can tell that this is one of those situations Thor is powering through by the power of positive thinking, his smile is a touch too brittle, “but there are many on this ship and we don't know how exactly long it will take us to reach Earth."

"And when you run out?" Loki asks again, patiently.

" _Before that happens_ ," Thor says, "we will find a promising looking planet and buy more. And some more cloth and yarn for new clothes, and maybe some more weapons though most brought their own—“ Thor trails off and takes one of the fruits from the table, fumbling at it with a knife while Loki laughs, taking one for himself and splitting it neatly with a fingernail.

Thor gapes unattractively, which just makes Loki laugh more. "The Grandmaster," he explains and, with Thor looking mutinous, he takes hold of Thor's hand on the knife, squeezing until he drops it. "The fruits are strange," he says, "but just as ours, there are tricks to them." He presses his nail into the spot on the fruit and lets go of Thor's hand. "You just need longer nails," he teases.

Thor screws his face up. "I'm not a girl," he says, knee-jerk and Loki hides a smile behind his hand as the Valkyrie leans in front of them to pluck some grape-like fruit, giving Thor a razor-sharp smile as she says, deadly, "What's wrong with being a girl?"

"Nothing, I just," Thor struggles for his words and the Valkyrie eyes him for a few tense seconds more before she cracks a smile and shoves him. 

“Your face,” she laughs, and spares an assessing glance at Loki before loping off to other end of the table, snatching bits and pieces of food as she goes and dropping them into a sack.

Loki doesn't bother to stifle his laughter and Thor glares at him before telling him about the democracy that Asgard has become while he slept. Explaining how Heimdall and the Valkyrie ("Brunnhilde," Thor tells him

"What?"

"That's her name, it's rude to keep calling her ‘the Valkyrie’ when she told us—“

"Thor, I was asleep."

Thor smiles. "Oh yeah.") went amongst the people and told them that for every two hundred of their number ("Including the children?" Loki asks.

"What? Yes, including the children."

“That’s—“ 

"Shut up.") a representative was to be chosen for a new council, a people's council. This apparently took a few days, and, by Thor's account, there was no violence, merely high minded discussion amongst the people.

"The Beast broke up a few fights," the Valkyrie— _Brunnhilde_ says, suddenly behind them again and Thor groans, caught out. 

"Alright, fine," he admits as she turns away again, this time to speak to the Kronan who, despite sitting next to Loki, hasn’t spoken to him yet. "There were a _few_ _fights_ but the situation isn't exactly ideal and—“

Loki laughs and interrupts him. "Brother,” he says, not unkindly, “you've given them a _democracy_ , if they didn't fight about it they wouldn't be doing it right."

Thor eyes him suspiciously until deciding to accept that and turning back to his food.

"I'm happy to give it a try," he says, eventually. "The monster. Or do you prefer having one more brute in your makeshift court, brother?"

"Brunnhilde and the big guy get along," Thor says, "and he breaks up fights."

Loki smirks. "Oh, excellent,” he says without real bite, timing it just as Brunnhilde wraps up her conversation. “What could possibly go wrong with a hulking great rage monster loose on the ship? Nothing, apparently, because the Valkyrie and he get on. She's a fifth of his size, Thor."

"She's a _Valkyrie_."

To Loki’s amusement at this point Brunnhilde tunes back to their conversation and asks, sickly sweet, "Who's 'she'?"

Thor looks for all the realms like he wishes he’d never woken up this morning. "No one, nothing! Loki and I were just—“

"Bickering," Brunnhilde says, dry, smiling at Thor while he flounders and Loki thinks that this might be one of her favourite pastimes, riling Thor, just as it is one of his. “I’ve heard that you do that a lot."

Loki doesn’t remember when Asgardians got so gossipy but Thor smiles and says, "Well, you know, we've been more outright fighty than just bickery for yonks. It’s nice, not wanting to lock him up. He’s doing so _well_."

Stabbing at the meat on his plate Loki scowls and tells him, “Don’t push it.”

*** 

For the next few hours after breakfast Thor leads Loki slowly through the bowels of the ship, pointing out various rooms as they go. They’ve blocked off an entire wing for the beast, and Loki watches as Brunnhilde swings the sack of food over her shoulder and types out a code at the door. He’s not overly keen to linger and so points to another colour on the map, and says, a little frantic, “Show me that one.”

They get about halfway through the tour before the day turns to misery in the form of Heimdall telling them to follow him and saying, "We're burning through fuel faster than we initially suspected,” when they’re safe behind the closed doors of the council chamber-cum-administrative centre of the ship away from prying eyes and ears.

Thor frowns, taking the sheets Heimdall offers him and sliding heavily into the seat at the head of the table. "If we slow down anymore we won't make it to any planet with fuel in time," he says, and he sounds older than Loki’s ever heard him, weighted down by the burden of the crown. He could say something, Loki thinks, but there’s a tenuous sort of peace between them now and he doesn’t have a mind to break it so he says nothing, opting instead to curl up into one of the chairs and watch.

For about ten minutes Thor looks over the star charts in front of him, occasionally asking something of Heimdall and frowning at the answer. "Here,” he says eventually, setting the chart down on the table and pointing to a cluster of planets near the blue mark that Loki assumes stands for the ship, “the Kral system. It's our best option."

Heimdall looks at the charts and then out of the large window that takes up most of the outer wall of the room — Loki’s decided that it must have been the dining room, since it has the table and chairs, and that the door on the other side of it must lead to kitchens. "It will take two months to get to the Kral system,” Heimdall says slowly, still gazing outward. “That will cut it close."

"It's the best chance we have," Thor repeats and Heimdall takes the charts, leaving with a nod at Loki and and “Of course, my King,” for Thor. 

The moment the door slides shut, Thor drops his head into his hands and sighs, exhaustion writ large in his posture, and Loki feels suddenly, immensely uncomfortable, an echo of the feeling he’d had in those last moments before he’d woken Thor up this morning. He clears his throat and tries to comfort him, but he’s years out of practice so he only manages, "Come, brother, there is nothing you can do at this moment, creasing your brow and worrying won’t help.” 

It gets him nothing so he unfolds from his chair to stand in front of Thor, tilting Thor’s head up to look at him with a fingertip and saying, "Perhaps we could have a bout, I could use a proper fight after two weeks." It is partly a lie, Loki would happily never fight anyone ever again healing sleep or no healing sleep but Thor’s go-to method of de-stressing way back when had always been a good bout and he can’t deny that it’s thrilling to watch him move, even if Loki has to volunteer himself for this one.

"I'd beat you in a heartbeat," Thor says and Loki thinks that he’s probably trying for dismissive but he can’t fully disguise the interest in his voice. Loki presses his advantage, teasing: "Missing an eye? I'm not so sure.”

He sees the fight between remaining to stare at charts and figures that will not change and the chance to throw Loki around the place play out across Thor's face. It's hardly a battle, a brief skirmish at best. 

"You asked for it," Thor says and leads the way.

***

Surprisingly, the training room is adequately padded for its purpose, a contrast with the cobbled together nature of the rest of the ship, and there's a group of fifty or so Asgardians clustered in one part of it, circled around the Valkyrie who, along with two of the other Sakaarian warriors, is putting on a show, shouting out instructions as she slowly arcs a blade towards one of her companions. She glances over as they walk by and cocks an eyebrow, calling their mock-fight to a halt with a wave of her hand and a barked, “hold it!”

Thor smiles and waves at the Asgardians before heading off to the line of weapons that are leaning against the opposite wall. He picks up a sword and starts slowly swinging it, rolling his wrists and limbering up for the fight, and Loki regrets his choices.

“What’s happening?” Brunnhilde asks, eyes on Thor, and Loki tries to answer “We’re having a bout,” with the enthusiasm he’d felt when he’d suggested it rather than the slowly mounting alarm he feels now. 

She shrugs, “whatever. Want me to referee?"

“If you’d be so kind.” Loki says, and walks until he’s twelve paces in front of Thor, as they were taught.

Loki flexes his fingers and cracks his shoulders and when Thor calls, “Will you not take a weapon, brother?” Loki lifts his hands, summoning and vanishing twin blades and for show and answers the question with one of his own, “How shall we do this? First blood? First to their knees?”

Thor nods and Brunnhilde moves to the space halfway between them. 

“First to their knees loses” she repeats, and her eyes are darting between them, sizing them up for bets as she would have done on Sakaar — she’d put her money on Thor, Loki thinks, people always do — and then she holds out her hand counting three, two, one.

Thor lunges with a smile, bringing the sword down and aiming halfheartedly for Loki’s side before Loki darts into his blindspot at the last moment.

That he’s trying not to hurt Loki is patently obvious, just as the fact that he doesn’t need to is clear to Loki so Loki baits him, “You’ve had weeks to learn how to make up for that, brother,” and, happily, Thor rallies, arcing his sword down at Loki’s shoulder before Loki blocks its advance with crossed knives. They lock together, pushing against one another and grinning. 

Thor is, naturally, stronger and the longer Loki stays in this position the higher the risk he's running of being pressed to his knees and losing, and if it’s over too quickly it won’t serve its purpose so, using a reserve of strength Loki pushes upward sharp and fast and just enough to surprise Thor and get out of lock.

Loki takes several quick steps backwards and again Thor does not follow, just stands and looks at him, assessing the field and the possibilities. As they strategise the only sound in the room is their breathing, rough from exertion. Their crowd of Asgardians are holding their breath.

Thor suddenly moves again, raining down a three-stroke sequence with such power that Loki has to summon a full-length sword to counter it. 

“Come on, Loki,” Thor says with his own smile, teasing _him_ now, repeating a well used question from days of old: “when are you going to start trying?” and Loki spares a moment of quiet triumph at how well his plan is working before scowling.

He raises his sword and darts to the left again and though Thor only just manages to counter him he attacks with more speed than Loki has anticipated, forcing Loki to fight him properly. Loki puts his whole frame behind his blocks and Thor laughs, pleased.

“That’s more like it,” he says, breathing hard, not giving Loki any time to recover before swinging again. 

Loki feels his eyes narrow and switches tactics, dropping his left hand from the sword and drawing a blade back into it. He summons a duplicate and slides down and away, watching as Thor, who’d put all his weight against Loki’s sword, simply falls through the flickering image. 

"Always with your tricks, Loki," Thor says, rounding on him.

Loki jabs his left hand forward savagely to Thor’s side but he isn’t quite quick enough, Thor catches him by the wrist, bending it back until Loki has to let go. It hurts but Thor is putting all his focus on watching Loki’s knife hand and doesn’t see the butt of the sword coming down hard to the back of his neck until it’s too late, until Loki hits and in his shock, Thor releases Loki’s wrist. 

He grins in triumph as Thor rubs his neck. "I hardly think that's fair, lightning bringer.

It's easy then, to play with Thor, staying out of his reach and messing with the depth perception he tries very hard to hide not quite having a grasp on yet. Loki hears the crowd ooh and ah as they dance around each other and thinks to himself that as far as distractions go he’s done rather well.

He doesn’t notice it building and on Thor’s next advance, Loki has only enough time to curse himself and shout before the lightning strikes out from Thor’s blade. Time seems to slow and the universe mutes as the electricity arcs through the air, and if not for the quick movements of the Valkyrie in pushing the crowd back Loki knows that they would be tending to casualties now.

Thor’s face is awful when Loki looks back at him and Loki thinks _of course_ too late; he should have joined the dots before. The charred sheets and the moment in the council chamber aren’t separate. It’s a bloody cycle.  

“Thor,” he says, moving closer and Thor takes one long step back.

“No, Loki.”

“ _Thor_ ,” Loki stresses, firmer, stepping into his space and drawing Thor to face him with hands at his shoulders.  The lightning hurts as it rolls from Thor’s skin and hits him but he can bear it, he has to bear it. 

"I didn't mean—" Thor whispers, breaking off with a horrified noise that Loki has not heard for a long time. It had happened once before, an accident, Thor in the joy of the fight had lashed too hard at an instructor, felling him. He hadn’t spoken for days afterwards and he had been young and only a prince then. Loki shouldn’t have baited him, should have played fair and been beaten.  

"Of course you didn't," Loki snaps, but his anger is misplaced directed at Thor and Thor is still looking around, horrified and lost, his eye still sparking with that pure electricity and Loki curses Hela for destroying Mjolnir, curses himself for his stupidity, curses every act and situation that got them here as Thor says, resigned, "What kind of king am I if my recklessness harms my people?"

"You didn't harm anyone, Thor," Loki points out and switches from reason to threats: "If you're going to be stupid and self-pitying I shall leave."

He won't and it doesn't have the intended effect anyway so with a summoned dagger Loki takes the calculated risk to strike quickly at Thor and the shock of the blade nicking flesh, hardly deep but just enough to bleed, is enough. Loki watches as the lightning jumps and cracks for a few seconds longer then stops.

"All right, then," Loki says, just a little stunned, his still hand aching from the electricity he’d absorbed, and Thor turns to him, eye normal again, looking for a second so unbearably young that Loki has to look away. "That was fun.”

Peripherally he sees Thor shake his head, but when Loki chances a proper look back he can see that Thor’s gaze is clearer, blue eye set and it’s almost convincing. Almost. 

Thor has always known that he cannot look weak in front of his people, one of those things that was indoctrinated into him, both of them, since birth, and so Loki knows that he’s bundled the fear and the guilt away and hidden them. Loki can relate, and his pride in Thor’s subterfuge battles out with his regret that Thor needs to do it at all. Thor should not have to be complicated, he thinks, madly before accepting that Thor was rather born to be complicated. It’s really a miracle he’s lasted this long without learning to lie like this.

Brunnhilde walks up to them and claps Thor around the shoulder, easy.

"Spectating at bouts is always a dangerous sport, your Majesty," she says, loudly enough to carry back a cause a ripple of agreement in the crowd, albeit slightly dazed. "We all know that." Loki’s grateful for her.

"Now, if you'll excuse us,” Loki says, addressing the group as a whole and keeping the attention onto himself and not on Thor who still might shatter under it. “I think we'd ought to let you get on with your own training."

Brunnhilde clears her throat. "Right," she agrees, and leads them away back to their corner of the training room yelling, "Come on you lot. As you can see there's always room for improvement."

When the people are far enough behind them, Loki turns around to find Thor still holding himself tight, picking up the sword and placing it back on the stand as if it offends him. 

"Would you stop that," Loki says, exasperated, because he may _understand_ it but he doesn’t have to accept it. "The last thing this ship needs is a king stewing in self-loathing. Look, Thor, I know you must be—“

Thor sighs. "Leave me alone, Loki."

"Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you?” Loki says, because as self aware as he can be Thor has the ability to make him a teenager again, wrong-footed and young and prickling at being dismissed. He’s aware that this is not helping at all but he’s watching the tatters of his plan fall around him and he’s feeling bloody irked about it. “You'd like to be alone where you can brood and be sorry for yourself. Doubtless that's what you've been doing for the last two weeks when you haven't been putting on a show for your people. It's not healthy, Thor." 

Thor holds up a hand and Loki shuts up despite himself. "I'll not argue with you, Loki," he says. "Entertain yourself, I have work to do."

***

Thor doesn't speak to him beyond basic pleasantries for a week and a combination of wounded pride and a bloody-mindedness that at this point must be a family trait stops Loki from doing anything about it. He takes the far seat at the table at mealtimes and tries not to notice as Thor gets progressively paler with what Loki knows from experience is sleep-deprivation, it dulls the skin and paints the under-eyes blue. Tries not to think about how slow he is to smile. How he worries his lips almost bloody. How he glances at Loki and looks away the second he’s caught.

Loki spends some of his time with the Beast, trying countless different spells attempting to coax Banner back through and gives up in a huff when none of them work. He spends some time with Brunnhilde teaching the civilians how to fight dirty until she tells him not unkindly but not all that kindly either to fuck off as most of his moves involve a backup plan of magic. The rest of his time he spends in bed, reasoning that if Thor won’t talk to him and he can’t be of any help he — he almost manages to be as snide in the confines of his own head as he would be verbally, but not quite. 

It hadn’t just been clothes he’d filched from his rooms on Asgard, he’d taken a couple of books too so he spends the vast majority of his time reading. He savours them, working his way slowly through one, a huge Midgardian tome purporting to be the completed works of some author with a warrior’s name.

He also spends a lot more of his time _explaining_ than he’d like considering he’s supposedly staying away out of spite _._  

"It's hardly my fault," he finds himself saying for the eightieth time, on this occasion to Heimdall who’d knocked only once before barging into his rooms and finding Loki in a mess of sheets with the Midgardian book on his lap. "You know how he is, he won't ever ask for help."

"I am aware," Heimdall says, and Loki can practically hear the unspoken _so you need to do something._ He knows he has to do something, he just doesn’t know what yet and the last time he’d gone in with an impulsive plan it hadn’t exactly gone well. 

He figures, in light of this, he may as well ask, "What exactly do you expect me to do?” half to be snide and half because he means it.

"Fix it?” Heimdall suggests and Loki rolls his eyes. “You are his brother, and—“

"I've rather more been his tormentor recently, you may have noticed," Loki tries, "I'm not sure that'll quite cut it anymore."

Heimdall ignores him and continues, "Of all, it is you who knows him best."

Loki sighs and shuts the book. "Look, he's exhausted, that's all, he's perfectly capable of doing all the King stuff. He just has to," Loki pauses, a thought forming. He glances and Heimdall and breaks into a slow smile. "All he has to do is get some sleep."

***

He spends another day finessing it before approaching Thor at dinner one night and sliding into the seat next to him before Korg or Brunnhilde can claim it.

"Well met, brother," he says and watches Thor’s face change. To his credit, Thor tries really hard to pretend this isn't welcome but Loki has quite literally known him for _centuries_.

"I'm sorry," Loki continues, though he isn't and will maintain that he’s actually done well in this context, in discovering the lightning problem, the cause of the lightning problem, and the cause of that cause, _and_ working out a fix to all the above, to the day he dies. It's just a good thing to open with, it gets Thor to face him.

They talk tentatively about something innocuous for a few moments until Thor gets drawn into some discussion with Brunnhilde, and the Kronan turns to talk to Loki.

“Hey pal, you were gone for ages and then you sat at the edge of the table like we were all diseased for a while. A lot seems to have happened in a short time and I was wondering if you wanted to talk about it. No worries if not, I understand, I just thought I’d put myself out there.”

Loki blinks. He hadn’t imagined that the pile of rocks could string that many words together. He tries to think of an appropriate response but clearly isn’t fast enough.

“That’s all right, bro. I didn’t think you would. You seem a bit more secretive that Lord of Thunder, even though he’s your brother.”

“Adopted,” Loki says, out of habit and Korg shrugs. “I’ve got a step-dad,” he says, and then adds “or I did,” and looks away for a moment, whispering to himself, “shit, I hope my mum’s okay back on Sakaar,” before turning back to Loki. “Anyway, point is families are weird. I hear that woman on the bridge was Lord of Thunder’s sister?”

Loki stares at him, he can’t quite help it. “Her name was Hela.”

“She’s the one who broke his special hammer,” Korg says, and there’s not enough inflection for it to be a question but Loki feels like it is anyway, answers:

“Yes.”

Korg nods and continues, gravely, “The hammer that used to pull him off.”

Loki almost falls off the bench, ends up clutching at Thor’s arm beside him for purchase, laughing like a madman as Thor betrays his eavesdropping to mutter, “That’s not what I said.”

It’s counterintuitive to annoy Thor but Loki really can’t help the laughing, “sure,” that escapes his lips as the Kronan spreads his hands, small pieces of him crumbling to the floor.

“Oops,” Korg says, “I’ll sweep that up once everyone’s gone. It’s nice to see you laughing Lord of Thunder.”

After that, Korg turns back to his insect friend and Thor turns his body to Loki, opening up and laughing softly with him at the stupidity of the joke, how Korg is utterly convinced of it. But tiredness still speaks in every movement Thor makes, and Loki watches him pick at his food with an uncharacteristic lack of appetite, eating only perfunctorily. 

If it were Loki he would have drunk himself halfway to oblivion by now, because Loki has always been the type to deal with his problems in the most dramatic way possible but Thor just lets his problems fester, unless his problems are monsters in which cases he hits them until they go away. Open communication really is not their family’s forte, particularly when it involves frank conversations with _yourself_.

When supper finally ends Loki follows Thor back to his rooms and says, "You are tired, my King,” closing the door behind him with a quiet click. 

Thor is silent for a moment, dipping his hands into his basin and pulling them through his hair, until finally he sighs, "What do you want, Loki?"

“Nothing,” Loki says, smoothly, “but that you should relax.”

Thor looks up at that. "How can I?” and Loki can hear the unsaid list, _how can i when we may not reach the next planet before our fuel runs out and if we’re stranded we’ve only so much food and there’s nothing I can do about it_ because that last is the rub. Thor feels powerless and he doesn’t know how to be powerless, Loki does.

Loki sighs, and goes in for flattery, says, "Thor, think of the city you have built within this carcass of a ship, no-one else could have done this."

"I _am_ thinking of it, Loki. I think of little else."

Fine, Loki thinks, and tries a different tack: honesty. "I'm loth to say it, and by that admission, you know it to be the truth, but you have the potential to be a great king, Thor."

 

Thor’s hard look that melts slowly into a rueful smile, like he wants to believe but just cannot bring himself to, "You have lied before—“

Loki feels himself mirroring the expression, a smile he can’t stamp out and doesn’t really want to. "I’m not lying now,” he admits with a sardonic laugh because he isn’t and if Thor only knew how funny that is. How desperately stupidly funny that Loki’s here convincing Thor that he will be a great king when all he used to want was the opposite, for Thor to ruin it. “I _hate_ that you'll be good at this,” he says, quiet and genuine, before moving onto the point: “But Thor when was the last time you slept?”

For some reason Thor tries to lie, "My sleep is fine," he says, not an answer and Loki gestures to the sheets, more scorched now than they were before. 

"Try again," he says.

Thor looks close to giving in, lets Loki closer until they’re mere breaths apart, but he holds up a token more resistance and says, "I would be foolish to trust you here, would I not?"

Loki is delighted to find that Thor doesn’t mean it, his sincere tone is utterly unconvincing. "Where would I go if I did you wrong?” Loki says, “We are in open space, the Commodore would not take me far enough to reach a planet.”

Thor manages a tired smile. "Fine, but if you do anything tricky I will find some way to punish you.” _You yourself said I could be better than just the god of mischief_ , Loki thinks but resolutely does not say, _so consider this me trying that out_ and Thor gives in, “All right, what are you going to do to me?”

“Excellent,” Loki says, reaching to tap the clasp at Thor’s neck. “You may want to shed your armour for this.

Thor puts a hand on his wrist to stop him, strong fingers warm as he says, “Loki, answer me.”

“It’s the same spell I used to do when we were young and you couldn’t sleep,” Loki lies and he does it with the long-suffering sigh of the terminally not believed because he is nothing if not audacious, “nothing more than that.” 

Humming another, “all right,” Thor lets go of Loki’s wrist and stands, shedding his armour and changing into his sleepclothes while Loki kneels on one side of the bed and sets about weaving the spell, conscious of the weight of Thor's gaze on him. He gets half of it done before Thor speaks again.

"Loki," he says, quiet, once he’s settled against the pillows, watching Loki’s hands as he works. "I'm sorry for running from you, you're right it was not—“ he cuts himself off. "It was not your fault."

Loki tries to shut him up before they both say something horrifyingly sentimental, the evening’s already veered too close to it for comfort. "Thor--"

Blessedly, though, Thor just wants to talk about the lightning. Practical things. "You mentioned controlling it and I thought I had. I thought that after the bridge I _was_ in control of it.”

Loki drops his hands from the seiðr for a moment and picks at a particularly blackened part of a sheet, arching an eyebrow as he says, "This didn't clue you in?" 

Thor ignores that and Loki allows himself a small, hidden smile as he turns back to the net, his eyes half on this realm and half in another. "Could you help me?" Thor’s blurry form asks and Loki's chest aches as he continues, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

"Yes," he says, but he feels winded and it comes at as a whisper, so much for unsentimental, the thinks. “Yes I can help, but Thor, _later_. You're exhausted, and until you’re not your control will keep slipping. That’s all it is and we can fix it but we can't fix it now."

Loki puts one hand to Thor's cheek, index finger at his temple and mutters, “You truly do need to rest,” as he continues weaving the spell with the other hand. Thor raises his own hand to cover Loki’s and draws a thumb in arcs over the fabric that connects from his wrist to the base of his middle finger. "Now," Loki says, mouth dry, "be silent, my King."

"You don't have to call me that," Thor mumbles, eye dropping closed before the spell is even done, and Loki does the magic equivalent of dropping a stitch before he breathes, refocusing and fixing it.

"You are my king," he says, mildly and then almost loses the thread completely as Thor turns to kiss his palm. He barely manages to suppress the shudder this time. It's been so long, Loki thinks, and Thor needs, and Loki needs. 

Loki could slit Thor’s throat here and now, could do anything to hurt him, and for a horrifying moment he thinks Thor might let him. He does nothing, has completely no care to hurt Thor anymore, it seems so pointless now, in the wake of all hey’ve done so he keeps weaving with one hand and surrenders the other over, letting Thor move it as he likes.

"You are," Thor continues, and he pulls Loki's hand away from his face to see the sleeve and unhook it from Loki’s middle finger, he pushes it down and presses kisses to the fine bones and tendons of Loki’s inner wrist, "my brother. My equal."

He doesn't have an answer to that but his skin does: burning, the treacherous warmth that's spreading from the spot on his wrist from Thor's lips and gods if he was ever this pathetic even before everything went to shit. In desperation, with Thor’s lips still at his wrist, Loki finishes the spell and yanks the threads of magic down over Thor with a frantic, "Go to sleep." 

It’s unceremonious and Thor can only look up at him in surprise in the split second it takes for the magic to drop and dreamless sleep hits Thor like a tonne of bricks.

Loki lies down beside him, watching Thor's breathing evening out. 

If Loki could — if Heimdall would _let him_ even though Loki doesn't want to accept that he's toeing anyone's lines but his own on this one — he'd have Thor sleep for a week, for a month, for as long as he needs. These periods of time are as nothing for an Æsir, Thor could sleep until he was ready. But Loki knows that that’s not how it works.

Loki has read enough, remembers his studies, and one of the Midgardian plays in that tome speaks to it exactly: the heavy crown that lies on a heavy head. The troublesome bedfellow. He'd told Thor then that he never wanted it, the crown, the throne, and then mad with the emptiness of space he'd twisted in on himself and become convinced that truly it was all he ever had wanted.

He thinks of the tesseract, still pulsing under the bed in his room, full of ancient knowledge. One of the stones Thor had run around the galaxy looking for. He very nearly manages to feel sorry for taking it and for hiding it, but he reasons that it would not have been destroyed with Asgard, the stones are too hardy for that, and would merely have fallen through space ripe for some other megalomaniac to pluck. Perhaps Surtur, if Surtur survived the destruction of Asgard. 

By all accounts, anyway, he needs to keep at least one card up his sleeve for the inevitable. Theirs is a fragile peace, the entire universe is waiting with baited breath. Only a fool wouldn’t make contingencies, they are neither of them that. Loki doesn't imagine that Thor will forgive him, if _when_ the time comes. He just hopes that it comes later, not sooner. 

Loki lies back against the pillows, ignoring the buzzing of his mind and instead busying himself with fixing each individual scorch mark. It's monotonous enough work that sleep, when eventually it comes, catches him unawares.

***

When Loki opens the door he does so looking like Thor and obviously Heimdall sighs and tells him, ”This is not what I intended, my Prince."

"No," Loki admits in Thor's voice, and it isn’t like he hasn’t done this before but it is, regardless, deeply strange to hear, "but it’ll work. Thor needs to sleep and the ship needs its king. We can’t have both at once so, _ta da_!” He flourishes his hands a little for effect but Heimdall’a expression stays hard.

"I did not see you tell the King of that," Heimdall complains. “You lied.”

Loki rolls his eyes and ignores _that_ because of course he lied, saying, "If I do anything untoward you'll simply march me back here and have me wake him. He needs more sleep than just a night, he needs more sleep that I’m giving him now but I thought you might be even less please with that prospect. He'll wake up at some point today, we'll have it out and you can say I told you so or I can say I told you so, depending on how he reacts. Which incidentally I don’t think should be too badly, he’s gained quite the sense of humour in his adventures, don’t you think?"

At some point during that Heimdall says, "Fine," but Loki isn't listening and continues his tirade for a bit until he realises, "I'm sorry, what?"

Watching Loki with those strange gold eyes, Heimdall pulls his face into the smallest smile imaginable and Loki’s still not used to seeing expressions other than consternation on him; it’s disconcerting as he says, "You are right, the king must regain his strength and in the meantime, the people must not be unduly alarmed. But if you do anything—“ 

Heimdall cracks the knuckles of each hand and Loki takes a swift step backwards before he answers, annoyed more at himself for flinching than he is at the threat. "What would I even do that wouldn't have lasting negative consequences for both Thor and I?" he asks, and it sounds petulant, like he’s been caught out of the Palace after ours and it getting scolded for it.

"That is a very broad question my prince,” Heimdall parries, “I would not put anything past you."

"You have me there," Loki says, at least he’s still unpredictable to somebody.

Heimdall watches him him for a beat longer and then sets off for the banqueting hall, leaving Loki to follow in his best approximation of Thor's gait. He's normally an excellent mimic but Thor has changed down to the very manner of his movements. There's less arrogance and more gravity, it's Odin without the age, Frigga without the perfect grace, even a little of Loki's own influence in the way he moves his hands. He misses the ease of imitating the swagger.

"You picked the wrong day," Heimdall springs on him, in hushed tones, when he reaches the high table and forces himself to take food that Thor would and not the sweetmeats that are calling to him, siren-like, but doesn’t have time to elaborate before Brunnhilde looks over and asks:

“Where’s the other one?” while shoving a slice of meat into her mouth with all the grace he’s come to expect from her. She’s unashamed and unflappable with it, and Loki understands the signs of a burgeoning respect enough to hate her for it, just a little, just while he still can. Loki favours her with one of Thor's beaming, guileless smiles, pitch-perfect in that at least.

“My brother is still abed,” he says because lies are always better when couched in truth and he hopes beyond hope that she doesn’t do something stupid like _checking._

“Huh,” Brunnhilde says, and then flashes him a dirty smile. “You look less like shit and the other one’s still in bed, you did say you were _adopted_ brothers didn’t you?”

It’s timed perfectly so that Loki will choke on his drink and the horrible woman just laughs at him. 

Heimdall says, “In their youth the ‘other one’ spent half his days in bed reading while his brother was out keeping peace in the nine realms,” and Loki has to turn his scoff into a laugh.

“True, he did. But he also learnt diplomacy at the side of the Allfather, and when he did join us on peacekeeping missions he was invaluable.”

“Yeah, man.” Korg says, leaning forward from beside the Valkyrie and sprinkling dust into his soup as he does so, he points vaguely at Loki and continues, “He fought on the bridge against those dead guys and he was really persuasive back on Sakaar. Sometimes people who are good at words and shit are handy in a bust up.”

Loki hides his smile behind his hand and stays studiously quiet as Brunnhilde starts arguing with Korg about words being useful at all in a fight until Heimdall pipes up with: “Of course there was that time on Niflheim,” and Loki slants him a hard look. 

“If Loki hadn’t been with us on Niflheim,” Loki says smoothly, once he’s managed to push the burning rage back enough to be convincingly earnest as he lies. “You would have been telling the Allfather that his son and heir had been devoured by Nidhogg.”

Niflheim had been a disaster from start to finish. One of Thor’s not-quite-so authorised trips to the Nine during the early years after his majority when he spent every waking moment trying to prove himself worthy of something that was just going to be handed to him anyway. Loki had almost died and Thor had had to carry him back like a bride in his arms  and he’d heard of nothing else for years. The Three brought it up at every possible opportunity, crowing with laughter about how he’d ‘fainted’ at the sight of a corpse-devouring dragon. 

Of course, they had stopped bringing it up at all when Loki gained enough control over his magic to transform himself into Nidhogg and scare Thor and the Three half to death. Loki smiles at the memory.

Heimdall bows his head slightly.”My apologies, your Majesty. I must have misremembered.”

Loki claps him across the shoulders extra hard for that, with Thor’s easy tactile nature, “Happens to the best of us.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Brunnhilde says and she shoves the detritus from her plate into the sack as she leaves with an irreverent wave.

“You were saying about my picking the wrong day,” Loki prompts, voice pitched low even though Korg is deep in one-sided conversation with the insect. He likes subterfuge, sue him. "Why's that?"

“It is the council meet,” Heimdall explains. 

“Heimdall,” Loki says, slowly, “I have picked the best day.”

Heimdall’s resulting sigh lasts practically the rest of breakfast.

***

It turns out they have a lot to discuss. 

Thor’s Councillors are a diverse bunch, youths and elders, assorted genders, the skilled labourer and the would-be soldier together. Loki is impressed at the sheer representation Thor’s managed when democratic societies on other planets have been struggling with it for years. 

Loki takes the seat at the head of the table, managing -- just -- to sit with his back straight, regal in Thor’s commanding way as opposed to his own, slouchy, fun way.

Heimdall stands beside him, clears his throat and gestures to an older man. "Councillor Ioann, if you'd like to begin."

To his mild annoyance, for most of the meeting passes without raised voices or squabbles. He wonders idly if he should suggest a party system but then thinks that he rather likes his face the way it is. There’s only so much fun he can have before Thor won’t be able to find the humour in it. 

The third councillor of the fifteen, a woman by the name of Eivør, brings up the wounded. She talks of a desperate lack of plants for healing, all their potions and salves having been used up to treat the critical cases when they boarded. Thor hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t said a damned thing about it and Loki grits his teeth against the feeling that’s coiling in the pit of his stomach. They have three cases, she says, who will die soon if nothing can be found for them. “I know you can’t do anything for them now, my King,” she says. “I just -- if we were to stop somewhere, maybe we could--”

“If the healers would draw up a list we will do our best to get as much as we can when we stop for fuel,” Loki tells her and, directing an accusing glance at Heimdall, adds, “and I shall send my brother. Loki is adept at healing magic, perhaps there will be things he can do to help.”

"My King," one of the councillors, a man Loki vaguely recognises says, more loudly than necessary and Loki sees with vague surprise that his eyes are hard as flints, "You mention your brother. With the utmost respect, I believe that the council must discuss the matter of Loki."

" _Prince_ Loki," Loki corrects, rote. "What of him?"

The man glances to his peers, all of whom avoid his gaze, as if this were a common occurrence or at least a known grievance. "He walks among us as if... It is as though he is a friend of Asgard."

Loki takes a breath, and starts to say, remarkably reasonably, considering, "Why should he not b--"

"Are we supposed to forget what he has done?" the man flings at him and at this Heimdall steps forward, hand to the greatsword of the Bifrost.

"You will not interrupt your king," he says, deadly steady. "Your motion for a discussion on the status of the prince is heard but not yet carried. All those in favour raise a hand."

Only three hands go up. A young boy says, "Prince Loki helped save us, he fought valiantly on the bridge against the dead and the false queen, he _is_ a friend of Asgard," and Eivør nods, saying, "His Majesty trusts him and if his Majesty trusts the prince then so do I. Håkon Magnusson your father would be ashamed."

Heimdall rolls his eyes, drops his hand from the sword and leans down to mutter, "You should break this up before they fight." to which Loki smiles his own very un-Thor smile and retorts, "Why in the Nine would I do that?" until he sees Håkon Magnusson genuinely gearing up to punch the old woman and slams his hand on the table.

Everyone shuts up and looks at him.

"Your motion is not carried, son of Magnus," he says, steady, "but rest assured that should my brother pull any stunt you can be the first to say I told you so." He turns to Heimdall, "I believe that's all?"

"Meeting is adjourned," Heimdall says, in his loud and official voice and Councillor Håkon takes off like a shot, scowling in their direction as he goes. The rest of the councillors file out after him and Loki can just about hear the strains of the argument continue. There's a noise that sounds beautifully like Eivør clipping Håkon Magnusson around the ears. 

Heimdall clears his throat pointedly and Loki schools his face back into the realm of calm and kingly and not wicked as they walk out. "Is it always like that?" he asks, genuinely.

"No," Heimdall says, amused. "It is not, though Councillor Håkon has brought you up each time. I believe he means to have you executed."

"No doubt Thor has very little to say in the face of that," Loki jibes, fishing, and Heimdall frowns at him, says, horribly _horribly_ honest:

"My King defends you to the last breath, always,"

Loki has utterly nothing to say to that so he just walks away to follow the blue line on the wall.

***

On Asgard, the palace healing room used the soul forge, made by magicians to be sure but not necessarily used by them, not enough of them left. Asgardian social mores and folkways remain, even as long as he’d lived within them, a tricky thing to quantify: Odin and Frigga were respected for their command over seiðr but there was a different rule for the rest of them, common sorcerers were feared and cast out for even the most mundane of magics. Loki walked that particular knife-edge with caution as a child, until it had finally sunk in that he was a prince and that the double-standard already existed to be exploited. 

Anyway, this healing space, such as it is, is just one long room, lined on both sides with pallet beds on which roughly fifty Asgardians lie or sit in various states of wounded or ailing. Loki hesitates in the doorway until he feels Heimdall at his back.

It must be torture for Thor, to see this and think that he can do nothing but Loki feels familiar anger prickle under his skin. He’s angry at Thor, angry that he hadn’t said anything and then allows that he must too be angry at himself for everything he’s done to make Thor think that he couldn’t.

Loki would need time and all of his focus to help the people here, and some he senses are beyond even magic. He’s just resolved to take Thor to task over this as soon as he wakes when a young woman with an expression of fierce determination approaches them. 

"Good day, your Majesty,” she says, sweeping into a small curtsey that looks wrong on her, brown hair tied haphazard on her head and a smudge of what Loki thinks might be blood on her neck. “My Lord Heimdall."

Heimdall smiles at her, warm and proud and Loki tries very hard not to stare. "Sigrid, how fare our patients today?"

"Little has changed since last your Majesty was here," Sigrid says, nodding to Heimdall but addressing Loki. "Without salves or ointments, it is just a case of keeping the wounds clean and letting them heal naturally over time."

Behind her, a young boy with dark hair and light eyes is alone and trying to manoeuvre himself around on an unsteady crutch.

Sigrid follows his eyes. "Odd is learning how to walk without his left leg," she says, proudly, and then lowers her voice, "He lost his parents in the fight, poor lamb."

Poor lamb indeed, Loki thinks, to be alone on a strange ship through strange galaxies, unable to run and play and make friends with the other children. Loki gestures Heimdall to stay and walks across to the boy, kneeling down to face him.

"Hello," he says.

Odd's mouth falls open in shock. “My— your Majesty," the boy manages and he can’t bow he tries, toppling forward for Loki to steady him. "Well met?"

Loki laughs, softly, Thor's laugh, and Odd smiles back.  

"May I take a look at that?" Loki asks, gesturing to the crutch and Odd looks confused until Loki points to his own shoulder and says, "You can lean on me."

The child hands over his crutch and leans against Loki who can feel the tense energy rolling off him in waves. When he pulls up the cloth of the trouser that still covers it, Loki sees that the leg Odd cannot bear weight on is mangled, an injury of the crush not of the fight. Odd resolutely does not look, hiding his face in the crook of his arm on Loki's shoulder; Loki imagines that Sigrid and the others have told him not to. It's a horrid thing and Loki knows he should wait but he can’t, not with the boy flinching silently against him. Loki can sense an infection threatening to take hold, it’s enough of a justification as any.

He rolls the cloth back down, takes one of Odd's tiny hands, and focuses. Pushing the shards of bone back into the right lines and encouraging them to fuse is easy but he’s done it to himself enough times after bouts with the Three had gotten too rough to know that it hurts. Odd stays quiet, brave and when Loki is done his breathing hitches a little as he gingerly tests his weight on the leg. He turns to Loki with a wide smile. 

Loki raises a finger to Thor's lips. "I need you to pretend you still need it," he says, handing back the crutch.  Odd settles his weight back onto it, bringing his left leg up, face determined. "I'll let you know when you can walk properly, all right?"

Odd nods his head vigorously and Loki laughs, ruffling his hair as he stands.

***

He's still in the healing rooms hours later, discussing the care of each patient with Sigrid when he notices the magic around Thor give and Heimdall’s head whip up from where he’s playing chess with one of the kids. 

Heimdall approaches him. "We are needed elsewhere, my P— King," he says, and it's the first time he's stumbled today. His worry speaks through it and Loki is suddenly very aware that he could have massively misjudged this. That Thor may not appreciate being knocked out for a night and over half a day whilst Loki struts around in his skin. It is wholly possible that this will not go down well.

"Training grounds," he says to Heimdall as they leave the healers with apologies from Loki and promises to come back and finish the game later for Heimdall, and then lowers his voice to mutter, "If I am to fight my brother I would do it in a padded environment and with weapons to hand."

They manage to watch half of a practice bout between the Valkyrie and one of the Sakaarian renegades, each calling out their moves and their footwork to the small crowd, when Loki sees his own image push through the crowd. Loki's going to get a reputation for shoving, he manages to think idly, _that won't do_ , before Thor is sliding to stand behind him with a threatening hand on his shoulder, thumb and forefinger curling around his throat.

Thor grins and greets, with a cheerfulness belied only by the hard squeeze at Loki’s shoulder, “Brother.” 

Loki thinks to hell with it and goes all in, beaming up at him and saying, "Brother! How did you sleep?"

"I awoke and you were not there," Thor says, quieter this time, just for Loki who swiftly ignores the normal implications of that sentence as Thor continues, "Imagine my confusion when I discovered what time it was."

"Time is just a construct," Loki dismisses and Thor squeezes again, harder and Loki only manages to whine, "Ow, all right," before there's a muted crackle of lightning and a jolt goes straight through him, sending his spine as straight as an arrow and his skin tingling.

“You should be proud of me, brother,” he gasps, and because he’s never known what’s good for him and because Thor’s hand may look like Loki’s brittle fingers but it doesn’t feel like it, warm and powerful on his shoulder, continues drawling, “The council meet was very illuminating. There was even a fight.”

“There was a what?” Thor asks, flat, and Loki only notices that the fight has stopped peripherally because he’s too busy clocking the exits and how rapidly he can get to them. Dimly, he can hear applause.

"Don't worry, brother,” he says, hands spread. “I didn't start it. In fact, I stopped it. Some son of someone thought that my fate should lie in the hands of the council." 

Heimdall clears his throat as Brunnhilde, damp and out of breath from her fight, approaches them.

“You finally decided to join us then,” she says looking at the hand on Loki’s shoulder and favouring Thor with a filthy smirk before asking, “did he tire you out?”

Thor gives her a blank look that turns quickly, and appropriately, thunderstruck and he turns back to Loki with a million questions behind Loki’s own damned eyes and Loki sighs, watching Thor out of the corner of his eye while he addresses Brunnhilde: “Hey—”

“Hm,” she cuts him off. “Doesn’t look like he did, you guys want another fight? We can give you some alone time, we’re done here anyway.”

She whistles to her warriors and gestures. They usher out the Asgardians and Loki overhears some dismayed mutterings about missing a fight between them. Brunnhilde is just watching Loki and Thor watch each other.

“Yeah,” she says. “You _definitely_ need some alone time.” She turns to Heimdall, “You coming? Though I guess you’ll see this anyway.”

And then they’re alone in the cavernous room and Loki tries to shrug Thor’s hand off and finds himself being held there with a gruff, “No you don’t.”

“Apparently,” Loki says, twisting in Thor’s grip to face him. “I'm a matter best left to the royal prerogative. 'The king shall deal with Prince Loki as he sees fit.'"

"Shall I now?" Thor says, warm and good-humoured, and they’re so close but he makes no move to step back and away and Loki is a complicated narcissist, he’ll own to it, but he’s never loved the sound of his own voice more. He’s used illusions on himself many times, he’s always been in control of them but these expressions, these movements are not his, they’re so Thor from the stress on the words to the upright way he holds himself.

Loki leans forward and asks, ”How _will_ you deal with your wayward brother?" and Thor's lightning rolls over the image of Loki's green leathers like a warning. Loki tracks the movement, the blue lines of light dancing over his clothes and he remembers the feeling of it, the current stinging his skin and then coursing like an ache through his veins. How his heart had raced. “Your control is better," he breathes.

Thor’s answering smile is dangerous as he draws away, leaving Loki swaying and unsteady, watching with one narrowed eye but the sight of two — he’d gotten used to that as Odin — as Thor strides the width of the room to take up a sword and say, "Shall we test it?” 

Loki cants his head to the side, taking in every part of the picture. It’s fascinating to watch his own body move back towards him, his own eyes sharp and darkening at focused on him. “If you like,” he returns and Thor doesn’t need telling twice, throws himself forward, all his weight behind his sword and Loki waits until the very last moment to duck out of his path.

“Still relying on brute strength,” Loki teases and Thor laughs. 

“This is a fight, brother, and I am stronger. Even though I look like you.”

“It’s an improvement,” Loki pouts and Thor laughs at him. 

“I was about to say the same for you,” he says, fond and for that, Loki throws a knife at his shoulder which Thor only just manages to whack it away before it lands.

“Come on then,” he says, aiming for bored by his voice is too warm to be as goading as he intends. “Where’s the _power_ , lightning bringer?”

Loki watches his own eyes turns white and Thor points the sword at him as if it were Mjolnir. He’s using it as a touchstone, Loki realises, whether Thor knows that he is or not. The blade glows with the heat of it and Thor lets loose a mighty strike, the lightning arcing across the room to hit just before Loki’s feet.

“Missed,” Loki says and steps backwards, thinking about what Thor had said last night, about not wanting to hurt him. He’d been ignoring that as well as he could but now it’s all he can think about. Thor’s care for him, still, despite it all. Thor’s restraint is more controlled now, more conscious a process. Loki toes the mark on the mats and then Thor’s suddenly closer, bringing the sword up for another swing which Loki can’t move fast enough to dodge so has to fling his — _Thor’s_ — arm up, transforming the dagger in his hand into a sword.

It’s almost a step for step recreation of the first fight, the day he’d woken up, Loki thinks, but it is so much better with Thor awake like this, vibrant and laughing. Thor smiles with Loki’s mouth and Loki thinks he really should have predicted his own reaction to this as he makes his next move, summoning another dagger and flinging it, adder-quick, towards Thor’s side. 

His own green leather flickers to let it through and Thor flinches, losing just enough of the power in his arms bearing down that Loki can twist out of the hold. 

“I’m sorry brother,” he teases as Thor grabs the knife and pulls it out, throwing it carelessly to the ground, blood gleaming on the metal. Loki’s transfixed by it, and the rest of his teasing, “Were we holding back?” comes out breathier than intended.

Thor rallies and the next particularly vicious electrified swing of his sword toward Loki sends a jolt of lightning through him, makes his mouth dry and his cock twitch and his gasp turns into a groan, control faltering and the illusions melting away. His brother sweeps back, leaving Loki standing stock-still where the lightning struck him. 

Watching Loki with an unreadable expression that’s utterly, utterly unfair since he’s shirtless and glistening with exertion Thor does it again, this time flexing his hand and the lightning hits Loki’s shoulder and travels down every nerve, setting him gasping, afire inside and out. It’s not quite pain, not to him, though he imagines that it could be but not quite pleasure, either. It sticks in the middle place between the two and makes Loki ache to have it again, to memorise the feeling properly. His vision swims, goes burnt at the edges and Loki looks at the floor, swaying as the world creeps back to him. 

“Loki,” Thor says, intent and worried but Loki’s face when he looks up at him must look a picture because Thor’s eye goes round and he looks just as blown apart as Loki feels.

And this is where it will all change again, Loki thinks, whatever tenuous dynamic they’d built on Sakaar and during the fight is wavering, on the brink. This is the calm before the storm so to speak, before the wave that’s been building ever since the day Thor discovered girls and told Mother that boys were good too and his eyes had flicked to Loki and away so fast he thought he’d imagined it crashes back down to the shore. This is proof, finally, that it was not just wishful thinking, that both of them have wanted this. 

But Loki can’t quite let himself believe it yet. The darkening of Thor’s eye could mean anything, could just be a symptom of the storms he controls, could be a trick of the light.

“I said,” Loki tells him, testing, watching as Thor watches him, rapt. “Were we holding back?” He throws another knife at Thor who responds by simply dodging it and barreling towards him and when he sends lightning through as their blades clash, makes it jump to Loki’s hand, Loki gasps again, louder this time, and hums what’s almost a moan as he lets the token resistance bleed from him and Thor walk them backwards with the blade at his throat until he hits the cool metal of the wall. Thor drops a hand from his sword and wraps it around Loki’s free wrist, pressing it against the wall until he drops the dagger he’d summoned on instinct the second the other one had left it, the clatter as it hits the floor disarmingly loud.

“This was your, what, third usurpation?” Thor asks and another jolt of electricity curls around the place where his hand grips Loki’s. Loki arches off the wall and Thor moves the blade back as he does, as if there’s much difference between the dangers. Loki would let Thor do anything to him now, whether it’s by sword or storm, he’ll take everything Thor gives him.

"Believe me I don't mean to make a habit of it,” he tries to drawl it but his voice is wrecked as he falls back again, as Thor’s sword sways forward with him as he goes. "Is this my punishment then, O' mighty Thor? To be beaten at swords?"

Thor's gaze drops to his lips, and Loki can't help but lean forward infinitesimally, shifting his weight just enough that Thor's blade nicks the skin at his throat. He moans, wanton as he feels a tiny drop of his blood start to track down his throat; _this_ he understands, blood and bruises and how good it feels to be roughed up a little. Loki wets his lips and Thor’s gaze catches on his mouth before drawing down with an almost palpable line of heat to where he’s bleeding.

"So you admit defeat?" Thor asks him absently, voice low and rough and surprised. He throws the sword carelessly behind him and replaces it with an arm high on Loki's chest, keeping him against the wall with only the slightest pressure and out of spite, or more accurately out of shamelessness, Loki wets his lips again, watching with delight as Thor follows the movement with utter focus. It distracts him while Loki brings his free hand up to press on Thor's chest, sweat-slick and underneath Loki can eel the thundering of his heart. He summons useless sparks around his fingertips, a warning, says, "I'm not beaten yet,” and shifts his body against Thor’s, a tease of friction, leather against bare skin. "You'll have to do more than that—“

Thor moves more quickly than Loki's anticipated, cutting him off and sending another jolt to Loki's wrist and as Loki gasps he moves his arm from Loki’s chest to knot his hand in Loki's hair, dragging his head to the side, exposing the column of his throat. Loki tries to right himself but Thor leans in, licking the blood from Loki's throat and then biting there, the rough scratch of his beard and the points of his teeth are just barely digging in. It’s far too much and not at all enough. 

Loki whines and Thor laughs against his skin, says, "Is this what you had in mind, brother, that I make you bleed?” and Loki is suddenly acutely envious of every lover Thor has ever taken, every person in this vast unerring cosmos Thor has taken to bed and touched like this because they haven't been him and they could have been, _should_ have been him. 

It feels like the lightning had, having the rough calluses from swordplay and Mjolnir catching on his hair and Loki’s mouth parts without words to fill it, all he can do is try desperately to suppress any sounds he might make but he makes them anyway, little hitches and gasps. Thor’s answering laugh against his throat is a rumble, quiet but full of potential before he runs his mouth lower, down as far as he can until he reaches Loki’s collar. “You wear far too many clothes, brother.”

Loki closes his eyes, admits, “Right at this moment I'd have to agree,” and with a sharp flick of his wrist he frees his hand to stroke up Thor’s side, making him shiver and shift, before Loki curls his fingers into the short hair at Thor's nape. He digs in with his nails, trying to make Thor jump and bite harder or jolt him again but it doesn't work, the pressure stays insufficient and infuriating. Thor grabs at his waist, pushing Loki back to the wall while his other hand goes loose in Loki’s hair and falls to his shoulder to tug at the collar like it personally offends him. Like he wants to tear it open and free more of Loki’s skin to claim. Loki would let him, but he’s damned if he’ll say it.

And then of course the hunting horn sounds and all of Loki’s joints lock up and he says, “No, please,” spontaneous and stupid and unthinking and Thor just looks at him while Loki’s frozen, worried that Thor will extricate himself and that they’ll never get here again, that he’s given a glimpse of something good only to have it snatched away. He’s driving himself mad until Thor laughs, dazed and enticing and triumphant and not at all like he regrets anything he’s done. Loki's hand is still around the back of his neck so he allows himself one last sharp scratch before he removes it, just to be bloody, just to claw back some semblance of control. 

"This doesn't mean you've won," he warns and Thor grins. 

"Of course not."

"Because you didn't."

"Absolutely not."

Loki sighs, one hand coming unbidden to his neck to massage the skin he knows must be pink and raw looking and Thor's gaze follows his hand, captivated.

“I must make an appearance,” Thor says, glancing reluctantly at the entrance to the training hall. " _We_ must make an appearance."

“I’d rather die,” Loki says, mostly to make Thor laugh again and when Thor does he leans forward, runs his hands over Thor’s shoulders, feather-light and teasing, and withdraws them quickly. “Of course you’ll be needing a shirt.”

This kind of wretched indecision looks wonderful on Thor, Loki thinks, as Thor waves his hands and says, “Couldn’t you just—”

“Couldn’t I just what?” Loki asks, purposefully obtuse.

“ _Loki_.”

“Say it, Thor, say you need me to use my ‘tricks.’”

Thor looks mutinous, draws his mouth into a line and says, “Loki, could you please cast another illusion over me,” and when Loki does he continues, low, “and don’t think you’ve gotten away with what you have done today. We _will_ speak of it later.”

“‘Thank you, Loki.’ That’s quite all right, Thor,” Loki says, petty. “Have your manners totally abandoned you, brother?”

“I know what you’re doing, brother, and it won’t work.”

Loki leans in, close, until his lips are half an inch from Thor’s and says, “Won’t it?” and before Thor can rally Loki is halfway to the door.

***

For all that his plan is to rile Thor to the point of distraction, since the only space at the high table is small, Loki spends the evening hyperaware of every point of contact, thigh against thigh, their elbows knocking as they reach for things, while Thor is either unaffected or a better liar than Loki ever wants to give him credit for. 

Though, at least when Brunnhilde clears her throat and grins, "How was the ‘fight’?" Thor turns ever so slightly pink. Loki can think of countless things to tell her that would deepen that blush, not least because she’d spent most of the day intimating them herself but Thor doesn’t know that so he says, "Enlightening," with a smirk and gets an elbow to the ribs for his trouble.

"I beat him easily," Thor asserts, "It was really no contest.” and it’s so infuriating that for a moment he can forget how it’d felt to have his brother’s hands on him.

Loki says, ”It was a draw and you know it,” and Brunnhilde cackles a “sure” at him as she’s grabbing some food.

Korg reaches behind Loki to pat Thor on the shoulder and says, “Hey bro, we missed you at breakfast.” 

Loki feels his mouth fall open and he manages, “ _What,_ ” before Korg’s continuing, “Oh yeah, illusions don’t work on Kronans. I was wondering why you were talking about yourself in the third person for a while before I realised.”

Thor, typically, is laughing himself stupid whilst Brunnhilde glares at Loki like she wants to burn him into the ground with the power of her gaze alone.

“You’ll get used to it,” Thor tells her. “My brother has a thing for amateur dramatics—” which has Loki hissing, “ _Amateur dramatics_? I was king for two years and no one suspected a thing, you overgrown—” while Thor starts telling her more stories about their youth. Loki gives as good as he gets, telling her of instances where Thor had come off looking particularly stupid. Like that time with Þrymr. 

“My brother made a beautiful maiden,” Loki says fondly and Brunnhilde actually starts crying with laughter.

Thor scowls, having run out of stories that make Loki look like the fool. “It was necessary to get Mjolnir back,” he says and Loki grins.

“It absolutely was not. There were countless other ways you could’ve gotten the hammer back without resorting to marrying the giant. I just _told you_ it was the only way to have a bit of fun.”

The rest of supper passes with all sorts of tall tales from all parties, Korg translating for Miek — who surprisingly has lived quite the life involving high seas piracy on some planet Loki’s never even heard of — and Brunnhilde telling of Valkyrie battles and Sakaar skirmishes with a noticeable change in tone but a kind of wicked fun nonetheless. Thor laughs and asks questions but he catches Loki’s eye every so often as he does.

***

Eventually, Brunnhilde having said something about the Hulk and Korg and Miek having said something about a meeting of the Sakaarian renegades — Loki had raised an eyebrow but Thor just shrugged and said, “they won’t exactly fit in on Earth, they’re making other plans” and Loki didn’t have the energy to argue that point tonight, though ‘hulking great rage monster’ was on the tip of his tongue — Heimdall, Loki, and Thor are the last people in the hall.

Heimdall clears his throat and slants his gaze to Loki. "I believe you have a spell to hide yourself from me," he says, with all the tact of a brick to the face, and Thor splutters at Loki's side as Loki nods furiously just to make Heimdall _leave_.

"By the Norns," Thor says, when he’s gone, "I've haven't felt this awkward since—“

Loki freezes preemptively. "Do _not_. Do not finish that sentence, Thor, I swear upon all the—“

But then Thor has a hand around his forearm to turn him and brings his mouth down to capture Loki’s. The hall is empty, the people are gone to their rooms to do whatever it is they do on their downtime, and Thor is kissing him. 

Loki spares a thought for Heimdall before he smiles against Thor's mouth, surrendering fully and letting Thor's hands guide his face into the perfect angle, scraping his teeth over Loki’s lower lip and licking his way into his mouth slowly, leisurely, like he hasn’t just made the entire universe shift several paces to the left. The scratch of Thor's beard is heady, intoxicating and Loki sways, unsteady, before he raises his own hands to Thor's sides, lets Thor keep kissing him in short sips of his mouth. 

"Where were we?" Loki manages to ask when Thor breaks away to breath and go for his neck again. Loki wouldn't have expected that to be Thor's fixation, tells him so.

"It's the only piece of skin I can get to," Thor returns, level, as if that's a normal thing to say, and then proceeds to answer his question, "That, incidentally, is where we'd gotten to: you wearing too many clothes."

Loki's already tenuous balance falters further and he stares at a point of the ceiling as Thor presses his lips to the skin of his neck where the cut has already healed into a small red line of half knitted skin, then the line of his jaw, then the ridge of bone underneath his eye. 

"Best not remedy that here," he sighs, amazed at his capability for speech, "I believe you have rooms, brother," but Thor doesn't seem inclined to let go so Loki lowers his voice, and adds, "with a _bed,_ " at which point Thor twirls Loki around without a word and pushes him forward. 

On their way, their silent, heated, way back to Thor's rooms Loki draws the sigils to hide them from Heimdall's vision, the blindness will be almost as damning as the act, Loki thinks, but he's glad he's done it when Thor grabs him by the arm and pulls him through the door to back him up against it and murmur, "This is why I didn't pick rooms on the opposite side of the ship," smug, before pressing his thigh between Loki's legs and kissing him soundly. Loki writhes, hot and desperate and wanton against him. He's wanted this for hours, weeks, years if he's being honest with himself which he generally isn't, and it feels good to surrender to it.

He's so gone on the heat of it, so wrapped up in sensation that he barely notices Thor's fingers at his collar, pulling at the leather until Thor breaks away to growl "too many clothes" at him.

Loki smirks dropping his hands to his sides and looking up at Thor with heavy eyes and teasing, "What are you going to do about it?” and when Thor tugs harder, warningly, Loki covers the hand with one of his own to bring it to where a piece of fabric covers a row of clasps. Time was Thor would just have torn his way to what he wanted and Loki spares a brief thought of how it might have felt to have Thor rip his shirt to get to him before he focuses back at the touch of Thor's rough fingertips to the skin of his chest. 

Thor runs his hands up Loki's sides, leaving, _gods_ , leaving sparks of his lighting in their wake that make Loki's breathing hitch and together they push the jacket off him. Thor stands back, hands at Loki's shoulders, and surveys what he's uncovered and since Loki doesn't insist on covering up so he can be the most naked person in the room so he waves his hand to dispel the illusion of Thor’s armour as he crowds back close. 

“You’re,” Thor says, breathless and his hands are roaming all over Loki. “I’ve wanted to see you like this for so long.” It’s hushes, it’s confessional and Loki’s hypoxic with it, overwhelmed as Thor captures his mouth again, swallowing every sigh and sound Loki makes and his hands don’t cease their movement over his skin. Thor aims one particularly strong current of electricity against Loki's sternum, so close to his heart that for a moment Loki thinks about danger, how exposed he is in so any ways but he gasps as the jolt comes, sending his pulse racing, every inch of him a live-wire.

"You weren’t so pleased to be electrocuted on Sakaar, Loki," Thor says, hoarse, and does it again sending Loki arching forward into his arms moaning, "You. You menace," then, desperate, skin still tingling and overwarm under the weight of Thor's looking at him, whispering, " _please_."

Thor looks as wrecked as Loki feels, pulling Loki away from the wall and pushing him onto the bed to kneel over to him and say, “Loki — Loki you have no idea how beautiful—"

It’s too much, so unfair that Thor can just say these things so easily here. Admitting to the want that Loki’s repressed and ignored for so long. "Thor," he interrupts urgently, pulling him down until they’re flush together, Thor holding himself up on knees and forearms. "Thor, please. No more talking."

Thor's answering laugh is incredulous. "You, Loki, the actual god of talking in a certain way don't want to talk?"

Loki narrows his eyes are reaches up to press the heel of his hand where Thor will understand.

"Do you?" he asks as Thor groans, hips making abortive movements as he tries not to bear down. Thor favours him with a glare made somewhat less believable by the fact that his eye catches on Loki's lips.

Loki leans back into the sheets and they’re cool at his back and Loki knows exactly what he looks like like this, has played it to his advantage more times than he'd like to admit and certainly more times that Thor needs to ever, _ever_ know about, arches his back. These are the moments that he feels most connected to this body and Thor bites his lower lip and presses his tongue in when Loki gasps.

"Do you?" Loki repeats, turning his head to breathe and then Thor's moving, leaning back, legs either side of his, those powerful thighs caging him, to fumble at the fastenings of Loki's trousers.

"Why are your clothes never central?" he whines and Loki laughs. 

"To infuriate you," Loki tells him. "Because I like it that way, always a little chaos." He draws one long finger in a neat line down Thor's nose, bisecting his face, and says, quietly, "symmetry is overrated."

Thor catches his eyes, too soft and when he opens his mouth to say something Loki grinds his hips forward and whines, "hurry up," to dispel it. The last thing he needs is Thor looking at him like that, tenderly, like either of them might shake apart at any moment after what they've been through. He pushes his hips up again and Thor refocuses, finally getting a hand inside and Loki feels ever callus against the sensitive skin, the hollow of his hip as Thor strokes his thumb in infuriating circles so close yet so far from where Loki's aching to be touched.

Loki tries very hard not to beg, to stay composed under the touch but then Thor's leaning down again to kiss him and kiss him until Loki can't think of anything apart from how there should be fewer clothes and more skin and waves his hand between them. He’s always tended toward impatience, doesn’t think Thor minds much now. 

Thor laughs at his new nakedness, says ”Your tricks are good for something, then," against Loki's ribs and Loki winds a hand into Thor's hair in response and pulls, sharp. 

"My tricks," he says, haltingly, as Thor continues peppering kisses across his skin and driving him slowly mad by not touching him where he's hard and desperate and has been since about the third time Thor slammed him against a wall today, "are good for all sorts of things," and he pushes a summoned phial of oil towards Thor’s hands.

Thor sits back on his haunches and considers Loki, one brow arched. He’s solid and golden and Loki lets himself look at him, the breadth of him, the scars up close in some unknowable, perfect pattern. His cock, red and longer and fatter than any Loki’s seen or felt, straining towards his stomach. Loki had found the oil in the week that Thor had been ignoring him and he'd spent rifling through already rather rifled rooms that weren't being used for anything; it’d been presumptive to keep it but he’d glad he did now. 

"Glorified cargo-hold it may be," Loki explains, dragging his eyes back up to Thor’s face, "it's still the Grandmaster's ship."

Thor's face of amused intrigue changes instantly into a glower and he snatches the phial out of Loki's hand. "Do not mention that man to me, brother."

Loki senses the opportunity to get what he wants, doesn't hesitate. "Are you jealous, Thor?"

This gets him pressed into the bed, Thor's thighs digging into his hips as he snarls, "Keep pressing this line, Loki, and I will turn this ship back to Sakaar and—“

"Do something melodramatic and obvious," Loki concludes for him, twisting in Thor's grip with absolutely no intention of breaking free. He looks up at Thor through his lashes, watches gratified as Thor stares back with naked arousal as Loki laughs, "I know, we've met. You're so predictable when someone touches your things."

He hadn’t meant to say that much but can’t regret it as Thor groans and suddenly he’s shoving Loki up the bed, proprietary like he always is when he manhandles Loki and Loki almost loses the capacity for thought as Thor pours generous amounts of the oil over his fingers and reaches past Loki's neglected cock to circle the rim of him.

"Are you not glad my nails are blunt now, brother," Thor smirks and Loki covers his mouth with an arm as he squirms.

“Thor,” Loki beseeches from behind his arm and Thor keeps up his maddening circling, a faintly worried look on his face and Loki gets the horrible feeling he's about to be noble and ask something stupid.

"Tell me what you want," Loki commands, shifting down for more pressure, chasing Thor's fingers and trying to distract him.

"You," is Thor's simple response and it's so terribly earnest that Loki can't help but shake out a laugh.

"I'd gathered that," he says, softer than intended. "Be more specific."

“I would have you, brother,” Thor answers, face clearing and Loki breathes in silent relief before the hand at his waist is sending another jolt of his electricity to his skin, sending him scrabbling, hands wringing in the sheets. “I would lie with you and take all that you will give me.”

Loki manages, just, to narrow his eyes and shift ever so slightly back up the bed and, horribly, _away_ from Thor's fingers, dropping his hands and having the only place they touch be where Thor's legs bracket his. “And if I propose to give nothing," he says, breathless, "if I want you to take?”

Thor’s eye is impossibly dark, the colour of a fast approaching storm. He says nothing but there’s a small teasing note to his red, bitten lips and Loki wishes he could surge up and claim them, throw over this game of goading Thor into roughness and just surrender to him instead, to let it be gentle. 

But he's too greedy for gentle so he stays where he is, meeting Thor's gaze head-on, unyielding, just says "What if I want you to just fuck me?" and watches Thor's pupil blow wide at the oath before adding, low and filthy, " _brother_."

The word hits like an arrow to the bullseye — in all its falsehood and truth, so inadequate a descriptor yet so right for them here, corrupt and seditious — and finally, Thor's patience snaps and he uses the hand at Loki's waist to slide him down the bed again to press one slick finger against him and then _inside of him_ and Loki turns his face into the bedsheets, his hair splayed around his head like a muddied halo, trying to breathe as Thor starts to stretch him open.

The movements are practised, another finger added quickly, and Loki is suddenly, horribly, possessive, wanting irrationally to be the first, the only. He turns his head back and reaches up, cupping Thor's face with his long hands and digging a nail into his temple, and says, "Give me more you horrid creature or I'll be the one turning this ship back to Sakaar."

Thor curls his fingers and adds a third, and the dense pressure inside feels impossibly right and impossibly wrong, a dull ache Loki wants more of. He pushes his hips back in a bid for more friction and Thor laughs, leaning down to kiss him, pressing their bodies together, trapping Loki's straining cock between their stomachs and sending him jolting at the sudden sensation, almost like pain but too good. Bending down to Loki changes the angle of Thor's hand ever so slightly, has his fingers brush over something that makes Loki sob against his mouth, their kisses becoming hasty and unbalanced, teeth and tongue and lips missing and then catching then missing again.

"You," Thor breaks away to tell him, Loki caught and thrashing under him, "are never leaving my side again." He leans back just far enough to look at Loki properly and say, to _command_ , "swear it."

He punctuates it by withdrawing his fingers completely and Loki groans at the loss, breathing in short, sharp pants and sliding his hands down from Thor's face to his shoulders to claw at them. 

"I swear," he curses, "I swear just, please, fuck—“ and that's as far as he gets, too wild to notice the ripple of Thor's deltoids as he reaches for the phial, the removal of the hand at his waist so that Thor can brace himself against the bed, too gone to notice anything except the hot, relentless press of something thick when it pushes in, large and slick and _endless_. The slow press of his cock takes Loki’s breath away and he bites down on a sound that would be too much like keening.

"Are you all right?" Thor asks, tense like he's holding back but he’s just as desperate as Loki is and Loki nods, almost frantic with need, hitching his legs up to pull Thor closer, further in until they’re finally flush together. He smiles, slow and contented and Thor leans down to kiss him again, the resultant drag perfect.

When Thor starts to rock into him Loki’s hands fall to the sheets, grasping and twisting as Thor fucks him deep and insistent and Thor's bigger than he'd dreamed he'd be. Loki lets himself lie back,  to be kissed, to go liquid and _indulge_ as Thor sets a pace of thrusts just as fast and brutal as they both need, all the intensity of the bout returning, manhandling Loki inside and out.  

Loki reaches one hand, the other still clinging to Thor's shoulder, down to touch himself but Thor bats his hand away and grips him himself and the feel of his calloused hand is too much, searing hot, but still not enough for Loki to lose it. Just enough to make him _whine_ for it.

“So this is how to silence you,” Thor bites out, hoarse but giddy, and Loki turns to bite his wrist where he’s bracing himself with an arm to the bed.

“I don’t think this is necessarily the best method,” Loki gasps, and then thinks that its so typical that they cannot help but bicker even in this. “If for nothing else than propriety’s sake.”

He drags the nails of one hand down, scratching a circle around one of Thor’s nipples and eliciting a stutter in the pace of his thrusts and Loki smirks. “It also doesn’t necessarily w—”

Thor's eye, impossibly blue, narrows. He rolls his hips before the next upstroke and the new angle has Loki crying out, the fat head of Thor’s cock dragging over that soft spot that makes Loki’s heart stutter and his own cock jump and he clutches as Thor groans, volatile, curling his hand, readjusting his grip before summoning a low hum of electricity along the most sensitive part of Loki’s skin. 

Loki's vision goes white and he's coming, every single one of his nerve endings is on fire, and he clamps down on Thor who is _still fucking him_ in thrusts that are slower now, agonising and perfect where he's so oversensitive and stunned. Thor presses kisses to Loki's cheekbones, to the just of his brow and the line of his jaw, keeping up a litany of nothing words, Loki's name repeated and uttered between sighs, and Loki knows he's being gentled but can't bring himself to care, happy to laze boneless against the bed and let Thor take, just as he'd told him to.

But Thor doesn't, he stays slow instead and fucks Loki in easy, long strokes, unhurried and masterful, burying himself into Loki and trailing his free hand all over his skin to push the point, owning him. Loki melts, dimly aware of his own small noises and their effect, making Thor's cock twitch inside him, everything subsumed into the overstimulated ache.

Thor curses and Loki laughs at the sheer concentration on his face. "Move as you will," he says, " _take_ ," and Thor's hips snap into him again and again and Loki grips the sheets as an anchor, tries to shift down to meet him but he's too boneless to move. Fucked out but still so hungry, ravenous for what Thor is building to.

"Loki, brother, I have wanted you for centuries. You have no notion—“ Thor pants, leaning down to press his mouth against Loki's, uncoordinated and needy. 

Loki's halfway through a response that he might, actually when his second climax catches him utterly off guard, knocks the air from his lungs as he cries out, winded, and Thor yells, the delirious clench of Loki's muscles pulling him down into their shared oblivion, their bodies shaking apart.

The world blinks out of existence before rushing back in and Loki narrows his eyes, biting Thor's neck where his brother's collapsed on top of him. His skin is furnace hot and he can feel an ache set into his very veins from the lightning, matching the contented ache of being so well used. He winds an arm free and brushes his hair back from his forehead, grumbling, with no ire at all, "Get off me you lump."

It gets him a laugh, a rumbling happy thing that he can feel vibrate through him, sending them both hissing as it reaches where they are still joined and Thor pulls out slowly, before then settling up onto his knees. He leans, one long line of him, with much more muscular integrity than Loki thinks he himself will be able to muster for _days_ , to grab the basin and a cloth.

He kneels on the side of the bed and Loki waves his hand over the water to warm it. They set about wiping each other down, gentle with the cloth on raw and oversensitive skin. He sends both back to the table with a flick of his wrist when they're done, to heavy-limbed and lazy to move himself and too, too _something_ to let Thor go, pulling Thor back down to him and burying his face into his neck, licking lightly at the bite mark he'd left.

Thor lies still, drawing patterns over Loki's sides, pulling the sheet over them when they finally cool down, and just, breathing.

“Thank you,” Thor says eventually and Loki goes still. 

“For what?”

“Coming back,” Thor clarifies sleepily, “staying, making me sleep. This.” He presses a kiss to Loki’s shoulder. “Everything, brother. I'm grateful.”

Loki blinks, lets a million genuine responses form and die on his tongue before he manages a wry “So you should be,” and gets a laugh out of Thor, another rumbling of happiness that Loki returns with his own amused hum before they settle back into quiet.

Sleep is encroaching slowly when Thor speaks again to ask: “Did you mean it? When you said that you were mine?” and Loki remembers s _o predictable when someone touches your things_ and feels his face flush beyond just the exertion.

He feels open and seen and vulnerable and so he narrows his eyes, leans up on his elbows to look down at Thor, pulling his shroud of sharp edges back around him as much as he can. "I went to the healing room today," he says, without inflexion, and Thor at least has the decency to look sheepish.

"Loki, I—“ Thor tries but Loki silences him with a hand.

He leans his head back and looks at the ceiling. "No, let me guess,” he says, cutting in the wake of all the honesty he’s poured out tonight, “You didn't want to need me."

Thor grabs him by the upper arm and shakes him, lightly, until Loki looks.

"Don't be stupid. I— I didn't think you'd agree to spend your magic thus. I'm sorry, it was an ungenerous thought."

Loki falls back with a huff. "I've not given you much reason to be generous lately, brother," he admits and then says, "They're my people too,”  because it has the virtue of being genuine but less revealing than _I would do anything that you asked of me_.

Thor beams at him and leans close to kiss the corner of his mouth, a chaste gesture but with no less feeling for it. 

“Perhaps together we will make a king worthy of them.”

Loki blinks and miles of alternate lives stretch out before him, in some he is antagonistic, he cuts Thor down at every opportunity and lives to cause the ruination of his reign, in others he leaves and never returns, lives a life wholly without Thor. They are the lives he used to want, that he fought tooth and nail for. He blinks again and the visions shatter. _Life is about change, growth._

“Loki?” Thor prompts and Loki smiles, turning back to curl up next to him, stretching his fingers over Thor's heart.

“Mm,” he says, studied nonchalance, “Oh, well, I do have two years’ experience.”

Thor groans. “Two years’ experience being the laziest king imaginable.”

“Go to sleep Thor.”

“I’ve only been awake half a day,” he says though it's through a massive yawn that betrays him and Loki raises a threatening hand, the green sparks around his fingers just as ominous as Thor’s lightning. 

"Fine, fine," Thor says and pulls Loki closer, making Loki raise his head so that Thor's arm can be his pillow.

They sink quickly into sleep after that, curled into each other with no intention of letting go.

***

Loki wakes up to the sensation of being watched. He doesn't open his eyes, tries to stay as still as possible.

"Should I be worried?" he asks, wry but Thor doesn't flinch, isn't shocked, so Loki opens his eyes.

Thor keeps his gaze steady and the low heat of it brings Loki's attention the pleasant ache in every inch of him. "Of what?"

Loki turns onto his side, mirroring Thor, supporting his head with a hand, and says, "You, staring at me like I'm a puzzlebox you seek to solve."

"You _are_ a puzzle, Loki."

"I thought I was predictable," Loki snipes and Thor throws his head back to laugh and laugh.

"You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"I've never been so insulted in my life," Loki answers, the jest in his tone to hide the absolute truth of the statement. “Between that and _amateur dramatics_ — ” he hisses the words “ — you’re lucky I haven’t left.” Thor played him like a lyre and Loki would be furious still if he weren't so grudgingly impressed.

They lie there for minutes, hours longer, half-drowsing, smiling at each other, until the horn sounds and they reluctantly begin to move.

“Loki,” Thor says, after they're both dressed, and Loki presses a kiss to Thor's jaw just to prove he can, that he's still allowed to. 

“Yes?”

“You — I, well.” He’s making a mess of it but Loki knows what he means, it had been written all over him last night, pressed into Loki with every kiss.

Loki laughs, “You better.”

 

 

EPILOGUE:

The boy looks concerned when Loki sweeps to his bedside with a knowing smile and says, “Hello, Odd,” and Thor honestly doesn’t blame him; Loki looks as haughty as he ever has, covered from wrist to toe and smiling at everyone and sundry like he knows all the secrets that they wish they did. He doesn't precisely look child-friendly but Odd looks less worried when Thor comes to stand behind Loki, sneaking an arm around him, hidden by both their capes.

Loki had given him a summary of what had happened while he’d been sleeping, complete with colour commentary on Heimdall’s being unhelpful and Brunnhilde’s being convinced that they were fucking before they had, and his use of the word fucking had just made Thor drag him back down to bed, making them both thoroughly late for breakfast. He hadn’t felt at all guilty for it, now he’s had his hands on his brother’s body he wants to spend as much time as he can touching him. Getting Loki to make those sharp, breathy noises, to scratch at Thor’s chest as he fucked him open again where he was already loose and ready until Loki came with a curse and dragged Thor over with him, waiting until the aftershocks had dissipated to thump him on the chest and cast a cleaning charm. Loki had muttered about how it would look if they arrived late at the same time and Thor had told him that he couldn't care less how it looked because he was king and could do what he liked. Loki had smiled at that, tried to hide it but Thor had seen it, even through the clothes that Loki had flung at him, commanding him to get ready because Loki was starving.

Loki elbows Thor and he clears his throat, "Have you been staying off that leg as we discussed?"

Odd's mouth falls open as he nods fervently. "Yes, my king, I've done what you said. They don't know.

Laughing Loki kneels down and puts a hand over the child's leg, muttering what Thor knows must be gibberish loudly enough to have Sigrid look over and gasp.

"You can walk now, Odd," Loki says, and the boy doesn't need telling twice as he leaps up and bounds across the room, running over to Sigrid and nearly tripping as he tries to roll his trouser leg up mid-run.

Thor pulls Loki tighter to his side and gazes at him, no care at all for how he looks, the sappy expression he knows must be on his face as Loki looks back, disgusted.

"Stop it," he grumbles.

"Stop what?"

"That," Loki says. "Looking at me like that."

Thor laughs and watches Sigrid try not to cry as Odd leads her into a space to dance with him. 

"Maybe you aren't so bad after all, brother," he says, quietly.

"Shut up," Loki says, and then the side of his mouth flickers upwards, unable to help himself as he moves to put his hand over Thor's at his waist. "Maybe not."

 

**Author's Note:**

> title is from carry your throne by jon bellion
> 
> comments make my day and you can hit me up on tumblr at kitmarlowed, prompts are appreciated if not always acted upon -- ya gal has a Master's to finish


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